


Worth a Thousand Words

by Mnemosyne_Elegy



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst, Ficlet Collection, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, grab bag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2019-09-20 01:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 26,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17013129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mnemosyne_Elegy/pseuds/Mnemosyne_Elegy
Summary: A collection of short stories and drabbles based on one-word prompts. Various characters and genres, but predominantly angsty and Gray-centric.





	1. Aubade

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a collection of short little drabbles and vignettes that I've been writing on and off. Tbh, I actually use them as writing exercises when I don't feel like writing an entire polished story. I'm just going through A to Z, and then maybe starting over again. I literally skim through the dictionary and pick words, unless I have a specific one in mind X)
> 
> This will be updated sporadically, when I feel like it. It's not very high priority, but I've grown rather fond of a few of these. It's a wide variety. Most involve Gray, but I jump between characters and genres a lot. A lot of angst and humor. There are a lot of different styles, too, because this is where I experiment. Most are between like 300 and 2,500 words, some are more like drabbles while others are more like short stories, and they're all pretty different. Enjoy it or not; it's up to you X)

* * *

**Aubade**

**_1._ ** _a song or poem greeting the dawn_

**_2._ ** **_a_ ** _**:** _ _a morning love song_

**_..b_ ** _**:** _ _a song or poem of lovers parting at dawn_

**_3._ ** _morning music—compare nocturne_

**_He never said goodbye._ **

* * *

_In the morning, when everything is fresh and new, the coming day is full of promise and anything is possible._

_._

"What's up? I thought we were supposed to be doing a job today?"

"Yeah, that was the plan, but Erza wasn't feeling well so she said we'd do one in a couple days instead."

"Oh. What are you guys doing, then?"

"My rent is due, so I can't afford not to do a job today. Natsu and Happy were going to come with me."

"Oh."

"Uh, but you could come too!"

"Wait, why would I want to spend any more time with the ice princess than I have to?"

"Natsu! Be nice."

"When is the flame-brained idiot ever nice? Anyway, it's fine. I'll just leave you to it and take a solo job or something."

_._

_The rustle of the breeze in the leaves, the cheerful chirping of songbirds, the stirring of drowsy city dwellers, all meld into a beautiful melody of dawn that lifts the spirits and ushers in a new and hopeful day._

_._

"You really could come with–"

"Nah, it's fine. It's been a while since I've gotten to go out on my own, anyway."

"I mean, if you're sure…"

"I am. Don't worry about it."

"Well, have fun."

"And bring me back some fish, please!"

"Will do, Happy."

_._

_With all that hope and possibility, it's easy to look forward to the future with the implicit assumption that there is one. What need is there to say goodbye when the day is just beginning and tomorrow is assured?_

_._

"Later, ice block. Hurry it up. If you make it back before Erza's feeling better, then she won't bother us for fighting. I'm itching to pound your face in!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, ash for brains. Keep on dreaming."

"Hey!"

"Good luck keeping him from destroying everything, Lucy. It sure would suck if you went through all that effort to pay your rent and he messed it all up anyway."

"I'm not going to–!"

"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. Hey, Happy, if I bribe you with a fish, then will you help me keep Natsu in check?"

"Aye sir!"

"Traitor!"

"Oh man, sounds like you guys are going to have a fun trip."

"Yeah, I can tell. The things I do to pay my rent."

"Yup, it's a lot of fun. Well, I'm off, then."

"Later, Gray."

_._

_So he didn't. He didn't say goodbye._

_._

"I'll see you later, guys."

_._

_But he should have, because there was no later, no tomorrow._

_He would never be coming back._


	2. Bellicose

**Bellicose**

_favoring or inclined to start quarrels or wars_

_**Lucy doesn't understand the guild. Mira thinks that she fits right in.** _

* * *

"I think there's something seriously wrong with them," Lucy huffed, hopping up onto a barstool as she scowled over at where Gray and Natsu had started up yet another fight on the other side of the guild hall. "Normal people can't possibly be that…warlike."

"Warlike?" Mira repeated in amusement as she nudged the blonde's elbow out of the way so that she could wipe down the counter.

Lucy waved her hand dismissively. "Belligerent. Quarrelsome. Aggressive. Combative. Bellicose.  _Annoying hotheaded fools_. Take your pick."

Mira just laughed. "Boys will be boys," she said in fond amusement.

"Except that it's not just them, either," Lucy disagreed, shaking her head. "It's the whole darn guild."

She had only joined the guild a few weeks ago, but she had quickly been able to tell that it was rather…unique. She might not have been here for that long yet, but she'd already seen a lifetime's worth of knock-down, drag-out fights. Gray and Natsu were possibly the worst offenders, but they were hardly the only ones. It was patently ridiculous how often the guild was turned into a warzone.

"It can't possibly be normal," she muttered.

"No, there's nothing normal about Fairy Tail," Mira agreed, her eyes sparkling with mirth.

Lucy opened her mouth to reply, but paused to watch as Gray hit Natsu hard enough to send the dragon slayer flying backwards…right into the plate of strawberry cake perched on the table in front of Erza. The requip mage was on her feet in an instant, face murderous as she grabbed the pink-haired boy and began thrashing him mercilessly. For good measure, she threw a sword at Gray too. He jerked back, wide-eyed, and it slammed into the wall behind him, taking a piece of Elfman's shirt with it. Which immediately got the takeover mage riled up and ready to attack Gray and Erza and anything that moved.

Suddenly it seemed like everyone in the guild was jumping up and yelling at each other, fists and magic flying everywhere.

Lucy groaned. "Here we go again."

"At least it keeps the guild lively," Mira said cheerfully, continuing to scrub away at a spot on the bar as if a heated battle wasn't raging all around her. "You have to admit, this would be a far less interesting place without all the fighting."

"If you say so," Lucy grumbled. Then she sighed and relented. "Fine, I guess–"

Finishing with Natsu, Erza launched him across half the building, sending him slamming straight into Lucy. The blonde squealed and went crashing to the ground, pinned under Natsu's weight.

"Oh. Hiya, Lucy!" the dragon slayer said brightly, grinning down at her. "How's it going?"

She stared up at him with wide eyes, feeling heat slowly creep across her face in a combination of embarrassment and…anger. Definitely anger.

"Get off me!" she screeched, smacking him across the face.

"Ow!" Natsu hurriedly scrambled off of her, rubbing at his battered cheek. He gave her a wounded look. "What was that for, Luce?"

"What was that for?" Lucy repeated incredulously. Springing to her feet, she braced her hands on her hips and scowled at him. " _What was that for?_  I'll  _show_ you what that was for!"

"Hey! Ow, ow, stop that, Lucy!"

Mira just kept wiping down the counter placidly, smiling to herself as a seething Lucy smacked Natsu around viciously despite his protestations. She rather thought that the blonde fit into Fairy Tail perfectly, even if she hadn't quite realized it yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looking back, this kind of sounds like the beginning of a cheesy Nalu romance. Ah well, they say hindsight is 20/20. But I graciously forgive it its faults, with all of the love a mother gives her ugly child :)
> 
> (...That's not very politically correct, is it? Oops lol)
> 
> ((For the record, I'm not mocking Nalu or its shippers/writers/readers/fans. I'm just being facetious lol))


	3. Comatose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a super cliché thing and whatever, but so what if I wanted to do it once? Although there's a reason I did it in a short vignette rather than a full story lol

* * *

**Comatose**

_**1**. _ _of, resembling, or affected with coma_

**_2._ ** _characterized by lethargic inertness_

_**Erza knows it will be bad, but it's when she sees Lyon that she loses hope.** _

* * *

It was going to be bad. Erza could feel it in her bones. She knew it from the second Porlyusica asked that they all come today. The healer didn't usually care about their visiting habits, not when they came or if they came individually or all at once, so she must have a reason for caring now. Erza didn't want to immediately jump to conclusions, but she still had that vague sense of unease gnawing at her insides.

But it was when she saw Lyon hesitating outside that her heart really sank. When he noticed her and the rest of the team, his face drained of blood. Erza couldn't tell if the others had figured out what was going on yet—they were always quiet and solemn on these trips, so it was difficult to tell if they were even more subdued than usual—but she could read it in Lyon's eyes, that he had come to the same conclusion she had.

He and the Fairy Tail mages exchanged brief greetings, but lapsed into silence as they headed inside. No matter how boisterous and loud they could be in day-to-day life, inside these walls was sacred ground, as solemn and silent as a tomb.

Erza hesitated outside  _the_ room, every fiber of her being screaming for her to turn around and leave now before it all fell apart, but she ignored her instincts and followed Lyon inside. Porlyusica was waiting for them, her expression even more grim than usual, but she wasn't who they were here to see, not really. She was the one who had asked them to come, but they had come for someone else.

Erza swallowed hard as her gaze was inexorably drawn to the figure lying motionless in the bed at the center of the room. Gray's eyes were closed—they were always closed—and his skin was deathly pale, sheet-white against the darkness of the hair framing his face. His chest was rising and falling ever so slightly, but it was such a subtle, insubstantial movement that it was easy to miss at first glance.

In the beginning, Erza had thought he looked like he was just sleeping. Lately, she had begun thinking that he looked dead.

"You all made it," Porlyusica said, sounding more tired than cranky for once. "Good."

Erza managed to drag her attention away from Gray with great difficulty and focus on the healer, although she kept catching herself darting quick glances in the direction of her comatose friend.

"Why…?" Her voice died in her throat, and she had to swallow and try again. "Why did you want us?"

Porlyusica eyed her for a moment, before sighing. "It's almost time for me to administer his next treatment," she said. "I called you here to ask that you allow me to discontinue it instead."

Erza closed her eyes, a nauseous feeling settling heavily in her stomach. All she wanted to do was block out the words, walk away, pretend this wasn't happening. She wasn't the only one. There was a chorus of sharp inhales and strangled sobs from beside her.

"Of course not!" Natsu growled immediately, his voice wavering only slightly. "That's giving up. That's killing him."

"Just give us more time," Lucy added in a choked whisper. "If we can just keep him alive, then maybe we can find a way to fix this."

Erza exhaled shakily and opened her eyes. Lucy was clutching Happy tightly to her chest, her eyes filled with unshed tears. Beside her, Natsu was glowering at Porlyusica, his hands balled into tight fists. Lyon said nothing, displayed no overt emotion, but Erza could tell that there was a perfect storm swirling underneath that veneer of calmness.

Porlyusica had been looking about the closest to melancholy and sympathetic that Erza had ever seen her, but now her face hardened. "This has gone on long enough," she said sharply. "I understand, but you need to admit that this is a hopeless endeavor. It's been over a year now."

"That's not an excuse!" Natsu burst out, helpless anger clouding his features. "Fairy Tail doesn't give up on its own! It's not too late to find a cure. We'll keep searching and–"

"Stop deluding yourself!" Porlyusica hissed. "For all you'll hate me for saying this, it's nothing that you don't already know. It has already been a year, and you are no closer to finding a way to reverse the damage. And even if you did… At this point, it would be a mercy to let him die."

Lucy made a strangled moaning sound and buried her face in Happy's fur to hide her tears. Porlyusica sighed and deflated a little, but her voice was still firm when she spoke again.

"There's too much damage," she said. "Even if he ever woke up, there would be no way to reverse it all. He can't survive on his own. Right now, he's being held together with medicine, an obscene amount of magic, and pure determination. His internal organs aren't functioning properly anymore, and are unlikely to ever work again without being supported by magic constantly. His muscles have atrophied, his bones are brittle, and he has likely suffered significant brain damage by this point. We have enough trouble just keeping him alive, much less trying to make sure that all his parts aren't deteriorating.

"Even if you find a way to wake him, none of that damage would be reversed. He would be an invalid, only able to function with constant magical support. And the curse has already eaten through all his magic a long time ago. That's never coming back. If he wakes up, he will be unable to live independently or use magic, and will quite possibly be an entirely different person, depending on how badly his brain has atrophied. Do you think that he would really want to live like that? Could you stand to watch him suffer through that?"

She turned to the side slightly, narrowing her eyes at the floor. "I called you here today to give you the choice, because you are the ones closest to him. I won't discontinue his treatment if you ask me not to, but I'm asking you to consider it. You have been dragging this process out for far too long, and it's preventing you from moving on. I'd encourage you to accept your loss and let him go."

Heavy silence cloaked the room as she finished her speech. Erza found herself unable to move, but then slowly forced herself to look over at her friends. Lucy had half collapsed into Natsu's arms, clutching on to him for dear life as she cried into his chest. Smushed between the two mages, Happy was barely visible, but Erza could still see his trembling from here. Natsu's expression was a heart-wrenching combination of helpless anger and utter devastation, as if he was half a second away from either going on a destructive rampage or bursting into tears.

They seemed to waver dangerously as Erza's eyes clouded with moisture, but she refused to let the tears fall. It felt like there was a vise clamped around her heart and it was a struggle just to breathe, but she couldn't cry. Not now. Not yet.

God, it hurt to have everything they had been avoiding for months just laid out like that. Of course Erza didn't want to give up. She wanted to keep fighting, keep searching for a way to make things right. Giving up now would mean that they were giving up whatever small chance they had to save Gray. What if they let him die, and a few months down the road they found the very thing that might have saved him? What if it was premature to let go?

Making the choice to stop keeping Gray alive would be the same as killing him. It wasn't, not really, not when he'd basically been dead for a year now, but it would feel like it. Oh, he was as dead as it was possible to get while still breathing. Not that he was even the one breathing anymore. It was an intricate network of spells that breathed for him, that kept him alive. If you could even call it 'alive'.

Maybe it  _would_ be a mercy to put an end to this farce. Not only for Gray, but for the rest of them as well. Maybe it would give them the closure they needed instead of leaving this grief and uncertainty hanging over their heads every second of every day.

Somehow, acknowledging that this would be for the best didn't make it any easier.

Still, no one spoke. No one wanted to make that decision, to be responsible for that choice. Erza looked at her friends and felt the weight of responsibility settle on her shoulders. Natsu could never make that choice—he couldn't make himself give up, and would fight to the very end no matter how futile it was. Lucy could never make that choice—she was a mess just thinking about it, and would never be able to bear the weight without crumbling under the guilt. Happy could never make that choice—he had a simple outlook on life, an innocence that threatened to shatter under the pressure of this newest evil.

Erza had always been the leader, the responsible one, and now was no different. When her team faltered, when they couldn't make the decisions that needed to be made, it was up to her to say the words that needed to be said and accept the consequences. She would bear the burden for her friends, force herself to do what no one else could stand to.

And in the end, she would always know that she was the one responsible for the choice that killed Gray.

It was like magnetism, the way she couldn't help but stare at him and burn the image of his lifeless face into her memory. This, the moment before she shattered whatever hope might be left for him.

Turning to Porlyusica, Erza raised her chin in defiance of the tears burning in her eyes and the weakness that threatened to send her to her knees.

"You can–"

"It's my choice," Lyon interrupted.

Erza started in surprise, having almost forgotten that he was there at all. Lyon's expression was still blank, unbelievably flat in comparison to everyone else's, but his knuckles were white from how tightly his fists were clenched by his sides. He was a pillar of strength when everyone else was falling apart, but there was something unbearably fragile about him at the same time.

"I'm the closest thing to family that he has left," Lyon said. "It's my choice."

It struck Erza that he was doing this for her, at least partly, because he was smart and observant and knew exactly what something like this would do to anyone. He certainly didn't want the responsibility any more than she did, than any of them did, but he would take it anyway and accept the consequences. He felt responsible for Gray in the way that an older brother might for a younger, and any serious decisions regarding the younger ice mage's well-being would go through him.

A single tear slipped down Erza's cheek. She reached out and grasped Lyon's hand, prying his fingers apart just enough to slip her own in between. He didn't look at her, didn't tear his gaze away from the still form of his adoptive brother, but he gripped her hand tightly enough to crush bone and she reciprocated.

They stood there side by side, joined together by the most fragile of threads, clutching each other like they were the only lifeline left.

"Do it. Let him go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, not all of these are going to end with Gray dying X)


	4. Deception

**Deception**

**_1._ ** _the act of making someone believe something that is not true_ _:_ _the act of deceiving someone_

**_2._ ** _an act or statement intended to make people believe something that is not true_

**_It's a lie, and it's a lie that has Natsu worried._ **

* * *

It's a lie.

Natsu is known for being unobservant, and for good reason. He will never be the first one to notice when something changes or something is wrong or something has gone too far. He knows this. He knows that under normal circumstances he simply wouldn't notice much unless someone points it out to him first, especially those subtle emotional nuances that he's so bad at understanding and addressing.

But he's been friends with many of the other Fairy Tail mages for years and years. He might not be perceptive, but he's been around these people long enough to learn their quirks, their mannerisms, their patterns of normality. Maybe he doesn't always realize right away when something changes, but if he's looking carefully enough then he can usually sort out fact from fiction, tell when something's wrong or someone's hiding something.

He's looking carefully now. That's why he knows it's a lie.

Usually he might be inordinately pleased with himself for sussing out the deception since he's normally so terrible at it, and even more so because this was Gray and Gray was better than most at hiding things and concealing what he didn't want the world to see. But Natsu isn't proud now, because this is one lie that has him worried.

"I'm fine," Gray's mouth says. His lips quirk into a wry half-smile, one eyebrow cocks lazily.  _"Chill out, flame brain,"_ they say.  _"You're being silly and getting worked up over nothing."_

And if Natsu had left it there, then the deception would persist, the mask would stay in place, the pretty fiction would remain intact. But Natsu makes the mistake of looking at his eyes.

_"I'm drowning,"_ Gray's eyes say.  _"I'm not okay. Everything is falling apart and I'm lost and I don't know what I'm going to do now. I'm breaking, I'm hurting, I'm grieving, and I don't know how I'm going to keep it together but I have to figure it out because I don't want to drag anyone else into my mess. If I can't figure out how to save myself, I'm not going to be saved. I'll figure it out eventually, I'll do it myself, but right now it's a struggle just to hold myself together."_

"I know," Natsu's mouth says.

_"I know,"_ his eyes say.  _"I know, I know, I'm sorry."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could slot into canon nicely in a few places (or into something else entirely), so I prefer to keep it ambiguous. Because I can.


	5. Exaggerate

**Exaggerate**

**_1._ ** _to enlarge beyond bounds or the truth_

**_2._ ** _to enlarge or increase especially beyond the normal_

**_Gajeel is in a foul mood, until he realizes that he can tweak the truth to impress Levy. And everyone else, of course.  
_ ** **_And it works...at least until Gray walks in and seems more amused than anything._ **

* * *

The whole day could be chalked up as an unmitigated loss, and Gajeel was in a foul mood. An entire day of work, and he had nothing to show for it except an impressive collection of inflamed scratches crisscrossing his arms. To say that he was frustrated and pissed off would be the understatement of the century.

Possibly the worst thing to do when already at wit's end was to walk into the Fairy Tail guild hall since everyone there was at least two to one hundred times more annoying than the average person, but Gajeel wanted a drink—a  _strong_ drink—and he wanted it right fucking now, thank you very much.

"Hey, get me a drink," he barked at Mira as he stomped over to the bar and plonked down on the stool next to Cana.

"Sure thing, Gajeel," Mira said placidly, unfazed by his temper. She paused, delicate eyebrows rising slightly as she noticed the state of his arms. "You're hurt."

"It's fine. Just get me a damn drink already."

Mira shrugged and swept away to fetch him a glass, her long skirts swishing behind her. Cana was already drunk enough that her speech was nearly indecipherable with how badly it was slurred, but she snickered and pointed at the scratches. Gajeel briefly considered bashing her brains in.

"Gajeel-kun is hurt!" Juvia screeched, making him wince. She hurried over to examine the skin puckering into angry red welts, and didn't even bat an eyelash as Gajeel grumpily attempted to wave her off. Woman didn't know how to leave people alone who didn't want her around. "What happened?"

"Nothing, nothing."

But now everyone else was taking notice, attracted by Juvia's shrill voice. They began drifting over to see what all the commotion was about, and now Gajeel wanted to bash his  _own_ brains in.

"But Gajeel-kun–"

"Go bother Gray, won't you?"

"Gray-sama is not here at the moment." Juvia's expression was so utterly devastated that she might as well be saying that her beloved was dead. Geez.

"Too bad," Gajeel muttered. He didn't much care for the ice prick, but having him around would at least give Juvia something else to devote her unwanted attentions to. He desperately wanted to sic her on Gray, but where was the idiot when Gajeel needed him?

Natsu let out a low whistle. "Damn, metal head. You sure got yourself beat up. Who did it? I wanna thank them. Can I have my turn now?"

"Screw off, Salamander."

"Wow, you're totally shredded," Levy marveled. "Are you alright? What happened?"

Gajeel blinked at her and coughed awkwardly, averting his gaze. Well, if  _Levy_ was going to worry, then maybe it wasn't so bad. As long as he could play it off to not sound lame. He could definitely use this to impress her. Impress all of them. Not only her. It wasn't like he had a special reason to impress her in particular.

"I was on a job," he said. "Horrible business, that."

"Oh, really?" Mira eyed him skeptically as she returned with a tankard and slid it over the counter to him. "Not an official job, unless you didn't check in with me."

Gajeel took a sip of his wickedly strong brew and hid his scowl. Must Mira make a nuisance of herself?

"Sorta an unofficial one," he growled. "I ran into this old lady who'd been having a cat problem."

"A cat problem?" Natsu asked, his mouth twisting in derision.

Gajeel glared. "Yeah, well, turns out it was a  _monster_ cat."

"What kind of cat?" Lucy asked.

"A really fucking huge one. It stood nearly as tall as a horse, it did. Its fur was short and stiff like a wire brush, and would shred you if you even touched it. It had  _huge_ claws, and fangs as long as your forearm and dripping  _poison_  to boot."

"Sounds terrifying," Levy breathed, her eyes wide. She lifted her hands to cover her mouth and stared at Gajeel with horrified fascination. He found this very satisfying, and a sign that he should continue embellishing.

"Eh, I guess so. Maybe I should've been more worried. It was a known man-eater, after all. Killed dozens of people before I was called in. It had these horrid red eyes that looked right through you, and it was like it could see my moves before I even made them. It was clever, and damnably strong."

He launched into a vivid story of the confrontation, outlining every blow he and the beast had traded in gory detail. Everyone's eyes continued to grow wider and wider as he talked, and even Natsu looked like his jaw might hit the ground. As Gajeel finally drew to a close several minutes later, he could see how impressed everyone was as they stared at him in admiration. He leaned back, satisfied.

A slow clap broke the stunned silence that lingered after the tale's completion, and Gajeel automatically looked toward the door. Gray was standing in the doorway, his eyebrows nearly disappearing into his hairline and a mysterious smile tugging at the corners of his lips. His clapping somehow sounded mocking, perhaps just from how slow and deliberate it was.

"Wow, how impressive," he drawled. He dropped his hands and shoved them into his pockets as he strolled over to the gathering at the bar. "You know, I actually saw your cat."

"Huh?" Gajeel frowned blankly, trying to figure out what the ice mage was playing at.

"Really?" Juvia squealed. "Was it as terrifying as Gajeel-kun said? Juvia knows that Gray-sama could have taken it out with even less injuries than Gajeel-kun!"

Gajeel shot her a nasty look. Traitor.

"Oh, certainly." Gray's smile widened. "I was actually going grocery shopping, believe it or not. And imagine my surprise when I was walking past an alley and spotted Gajeel down there cornering a cat."

"Were its fangs really as long as your forearm?" Levy asked, hanging on Gray's every word.

Gajeel shifted uncomfortably and willed Gray to shut the hell up.

"Well, that might have been a  _little_ bit of an exaggeration," Gray said, giving Gajeel a sly look. "Although I must admit, it was interesting to hear him muttering about how he was a dragon slayer and dragon slayers  _must_ have cats for companions since both Natsu and Wendy do. And Gajeel would need a very impressive feline to be worthy of becoming his companion, wouldn't he?"

This had to be karma for Gajeel wishing for Gray to get stuck with his stalker.

Levy nodded her agreement. "Did its eyes actually glow red?"

"I didn't get a good look as it ran past me, but I believe its eyes were actually green." Gray's grin sharpened as he prepared to deliver the killing blow. "It was this adorable little ball of gray fluff, still just a tiny kitten, really. Still managed to give him some nasty scratches as it escaped, although it couldn't have done  _all_ that damage. Just how many of the city's strays did you harass today, Gajeel?"

Everyone turned to look back at Gajeel in disbelief. He stared at Gray's smug grin for a few seconds longer and then downed his whole tankard.

"Mira, hurry up and get me a refill. Like ten of them. The strongest you have."

Normally Gajeel might just punch the smug bastard, but he was worn out from his day's exploits and aching from the myriad scratches all the uncooperative cats had inflicted on him. He didn't have the energy for it.

He put his head down on the counter and wrapped his arms around it.

Around him, everyone laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gajeel looking for feline companionship is his shining moment lol It still cracks me up.


	6. Fallen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fallen" isn't a super fancy word, but I was pleased with finding a scene where I could very neatly fit three different characters into three different definitions of the same word.

* * *

**Fallen**

**_1._ ** _lying on the ground, after falling down_

**_2._ ** _subject to sin or depravity_

**_3._ ** _(of a soldier) killed in battle; defeated_

**_Lyon was the only one who went over the cliff with Racer, but all three of them fell._ **

* * *

Lyon pulled himself to his feet with no little difficulty, swaying unsteadily as he threw one last glance at Racer and then turned to regard Sherry as she came running over. Damn, luring that bastard so far and taking so many hits had really taken a lot out of him.

"Lyon-sama!" Sherry cried. She slid to a stop in front of him and ran her eyes over his injuries. "Are you alright?"

"Of course," he said with more bravado than he felt. "No big deal."

He gave their defeated foe a look of vicious satisfaction, and Sherry smiled brightly.

"You were amazing! Although I really did think that you and Gray were fighting!"

In another time and place, they might have been. Still, it made a quiet, hopeful feeling spark in Lyon's chest, knowing that he had worked together again with Gray after so long. Maybe, just maybe, it was the start of something bright and new.

A sound rustled in the surrounding forest, and Lyon looked over to see Gray hurry out of the trees. The kid was fast, Lyon had to admit. It was a fair distance from where Gray had shot the arrow to here, where Lyon had lured Racer away until the younger ice mage was outside the radius of his magic.

"You guys alright?" Gray asked gruffly as he strolled over at a more restrained pace and gave their collapsed opponent a wary once-over.

Ah, Gray. He never could let himself sound as if he cared too much. Some things hadn't changed so very much after all.

"Fine," Lyon said. "He's down for the count, though."

"Yeah. Thanks for helping out. It was clever how you figured him out."

Lyon's eyebrows jumped upward of their own accord. The words were delivered in a terse, reluctant tone, but they were still a compliment. Gray didn't really do compliments with people he considered rivals and had always been careful to mask them around Lyon, so it was a big deal if he let one slip.

This was still shaky ground, too. Gray had changed since they were children even if some things seemed very much the same, and the two of them had last met as enemies. It was an awkward dance they were performing, even if neither had really acknowledged it yet.

"Of course," said Lyon, puffing out his chest. "It's understandable if the younger student sometimes needs help and instruction from the elder."

" _What?_ " Gray demanded. Indignant anger flashed across his face, but then he hesitated and deflated. "Whatever."

Lyon eyed him in surprise. That was an unexpectedly mild reaction. But Gray looked exhausted, even if he was putting on a good show. He'd seemed drained right from the beginning, when he'd stumbled across Lyon and asked—demanded—for help. Lyon wondered how much magic he had used up even before that point to tire him out so much.

"You did well," Lyon conceded finally. "That was a good shot."

Gray blinked at him blankly, but then flushed and looked away. "I don't need your approval," he growled.

And Lyon was taken by surprise again as he saw the embarrassed blush belying the scowl and indignant irritation. Hm. There was something to take note of and file away. He hadn't realized how much Gray did, in fact, crave his approval and acceptance even after all these years.

Lyon hid a smile. Stupid little brat. It felt strangely good to have him here again, the two of them against the world instead of against each other. Theirs was a broken road and troubled relationship, but maybe they were finally ready to start rebuilding.

"You know–"

"You can't defeat me!" Racer interrupted. Lyon startled and whipped around to see the enemy mage stagger to his feet and rip off his shirt to expose the device strapped to his chest. "I'll take you all down with me!"

Explosive lacrima? Lyon cursed as Racer rushed toward them. Gray bit out a curse of his own, while Sherry said something in a frightened, high-pitched voice.

There was a moment where time froze and Lyon just watched the oncoming train wreck. But with Gray and Sherry behind him and all of them running low on magic, there was no time to waste.

Lyon was moving half a second before he registered what he was about to do. He charged forward and slammed into Racer's chest, sending them both lurching back. And then they were tumbling over the cliff, Lyon and Racer and the bomb that could have killed them all.

"Lyon-sama!"

"Lyon!"

The voices were piercing despite the wind whistling in his ears, and Lyon managed to catch one last glimpse of his friends' horrified faces as he fell. Gray's panicked, grief-stricken expression and heartrending cry would be forever etched into his memory.

"The things I do for you, younger pupil," Lyon sighed to the wind.

The lacrima exploded.

Up above, Gray and Sherry stared down in horror, desperately searching the rubble far below for any sign of their fallen savior.

* * *

It wasn't possible. Not Lyon-sama. Sherry couldn't believe that he was dead, but how could anyone have survived such a violent explosion? Her heart was breaking as she stared down at the rubble strewn about the base of the cliff, thrown by the explosion. Was Lyon-sama buried somewhere beneath all that, his body battered and broken?

"Come on!" Gray snapped, whipping around and running away from the cliff's edge. "Let's go find him."

Sherry followed almost automatically, her body moving of its own accord while her mind reeled in shock and disbelief and grief. Lyon-sama could not…

Gray raced through the trees and stumbled down the mountainside, seeming almost as panicked as Sherry. He couldn't be, though, because Sherry loved Lyon-sama more than anyone. What right did Gray have to act so horrified? He had hurt Lyon-sama, hadn't even seen him in years. Sherry had been by Lyon-sama's side the whole time, had loved him and helped him along with all his plans. She was the one who was grieving.

Reaching the base of the mountain and circling around to beneath the cliff, Gray began frantically searching through the wreckage, heaving up stones and throwing them aside.

"Lyon!" he called. "Lyon, where are you?"

It felt like they searched forever, but Lyon-sama was nowhere to be found. Sherry paused finally, the last shred of hope in her heart slipping through her fingers and evaporating. Lyon-sama, her Lyon-sama, was dead.

Something was slithering around inside her now, beating against her ribcage and filling up the gaping hole where her heart had been. Something oily and dark. She hovered on the very edge, one wrong step away from losing her balance and tumbling into the abyss.

Lyon-sama was dead, and someone would pay. Who? Who was to blame?

"Lyon! Where are you, you idiot?"

Sherry's gaze fixed on Gray, still fruitlessly scrabbling in the rocks. Something clicked into place and her heart went cold.  _Him_. Who else was to blame but Gray? Gray who had killed Lyon-sama's master and hurt him, Gray who had dragged Lyon-sama into his fight, Gray who should have been the one killed instead.

Her focus locked on her prey as the darkness sunk its bitter tendrils around her heart and squeezed. She would avenge Lyon-sama.

She knew what she had to do, this fallen angel.

* * *

He had to be here somewhere. Gray shoved aside another chunk of rock and paused for a moment, panting with exertion. His magic was depleted and his body battered and bruised from all the fighting, and his hands were raw and bleeding from scraping against the rocks. He trembled on the brink of collapse.

But then he shook his head and got back to work, frantically digging through the monstrous pile of rubble. Lyon had to be here somewhere. He had to be alive. He was too stubborn to die.

_Please let him be alive_.

He couldn't be dead, not now. He had just come back, and Gray had just begun daring to hope that maybe they would be able to work on mending their relationship. Lyon couldn't die, not when Gray still loved him so much. Not when he had sacrificed himself for Gray in much the same way Ur had.

_Don't you dare die. Not for me. Don't you die for me._

"Lyon! Lyon, where–?"

Gray broke off with a gasp as something wrapped around his chest and squeezed until his ribs creaked. He flailed desperately, but the tendrils lifted him into the air and bound his limbs. The air escaped his lips in a startled cry, and the vines tightened relentlessly to fill in the new space. When Gray tried to take a breath, his lungs couldn't expand far enough to get any air in.

If only he could free his hands…

"This is your fault. You will die with Lyon-sama."

Spots danced across Gray's vision, blackness eating away at the edges, but he caught a glimpse of Sherry's face, somehow distorted and unnatural. Something was wrong, something was–

Bone splintered, sending stabbing pain searing through his body. He closed his eyes and desperately tried to pull in a breath, his lungs burning. Everything was a ball of agony, slowly constricting until he broke. He couldn't breathe, couldn't–

Sherry didn't smile as she watched Gray's head fall back and his eyes close, his body snared in her most punishing vines. Lyon-sama was still dead, and she still had more work to do. She turned away to hunt down everyone else who must die as vengeance for her love's death, leaving behind the fallen warrior.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, this was specifically written to be canon compliant with Oración Seis...although I for sure hinted that it could go a lot darker. I like it ambiguous enough that it could go either way, depending on my mood.


	7. Grimoire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Ultear isn't a particularly popular character, but I like her and was interested in the link between her, grimoires, and Grimoire Heart.

* * *

**Grimoire**

_a book of magical knowledge, especially one containing spells_

**_Ultear's books held everything she could possibly want...except for the most important thing._ **

* * *

Ultear closed the book reverently, letting the yellowed, age-worn pages slip through her fingers with a faint rustling until the heavy cover fell and locked them back into their leather-bound prison. Carefully setting it aside next to a neat stack of other old tomes, she picked up the next one and flipped through it, her eyes roving hungrily over the faded diagrams and archaic words inked across the pages. Beautiful. Even more than that, useful.

She loved this library she had created. It was her sanctuary away from the other fools of her guild, where she could tune out this world she had never wanted and imagine her new one. These books held the key to both her future and her past. A better future that was, in fact, a better past.

There was no one of them that gave her what she sought, but combined they were a treasure trove. Cryptic clues to the One Magic, spells for manipulating time, boundless information on the magic she craved… She took all these pieces and wove them together into a brilliant tapestry, building up her magic and reveling in the world she held in her hands. One day she would find it: the answer to it all, the way to truly turn back the world and fix everything. These books held everything she could possibly want.

Except, some dark corner of her mind whispered, the confirmation that her dream was possible at all.


	8. Halcyon

**Halcyon**

_denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful_

**_Lyon reminisces his halcyon days of youth. Gray remembers them a bit differently._ **

* * *

"Nice place you've got here," Lyon said, stepping inside the apartment and looking around. Everything was arranged so ridiculously neatly that it couldn't be anyone's home but Gray's.

"Thanks." Gray stepped around Lyon and shut the door. "Don't mess anything up or I'll kick you out."

"You can't kick me out. I don't have anywhere to go."

"Wrong. You can go find a hotel. This wouldn't be a problem if you'd just gone home like you were supposed to."

"The trains aren't running! How's it my fault that they somehow managed to blow out half the track? Anyway, I was visiting you, so it's your job to put me up until the train is back up and running."

"Pretty sure I never asked you to visit, so that's still on you."

"Ungrateful little brat," Lyon grumbled. "I'm going to take your couch. Go make me some hot chocolate."

Gray rolled his eyes. "Yeah, just make yourself right at home, why don't you?"

"I will, thanks. Actually, I'll come make the hot chocolate."

"Like hell you will," Gray snapped, making a beeline for the kitchen. "Your hot chocolate tastes like shit. If you want it, I'll make it. If only to keep you away from it."

Lyon scowled and followed after him. "I'm highly offended by that."

"Good." Gray began rummaging around his cupboards, quickly and efficiently pulling out ingredients and cookware. "It was meant to be offensive."

It was Lyon's turn to roll his eyes. Only Gray could be this annoying. Although he had to admit that Gray's hot chocolate might have a  _slight_  edge over his. Of course, he'd rather die than tell the cocky little brat that.

Still, he watched closely as Gray threw everything on the stove with practiced motions and began mixing. There must surely be some kind of secret for how he could always make it taste so much better than Lyon's.

"I'll find you some blankets and pillows and stuff," Gray said without looking up. "And yes, you can have the couch. I know you already ate, but help yourself to anything in the fridge if you get hungry later."

Lyon arched an eyebrow. "Who is this polite charmer and what has he done with that little brat Gray?"

Gray glowered as he dumped the chocolate mixture into two mugs and shoved one at Lyon's chest. "Screw off, Lyon. I can still kick you out."

"But you won't, because you love me."

Lyon laughed at Gray's mutinous grumblings and strutted back out to the living room smugly. Settling himself comfortably onto the couch, he sipped at his hot chocolate and watched Gray over the rim as the younger mage dropped into the armchair across from him. It was damnably good cocoa. He would have to steal Gray's secret somehow.

"Don't push your luck," Gray muttered.

Lyon just smiled, and they sat in companionable silence for a few moments. Not too many moments, though, because Lyon quickly got bored of silence.

"This is kind of like the old days, huh?" He smiled down into his mug, summoning up the childhood feeling of sitting around with hot chocolate to ward off the cold. It wasn't freezing, they weren't on a mountain, they weren't children anymore, and yet… "A throwback to our halcyon days of youth?"

Gray's right eyebrow crawled up his face in a gesture somehow both disbelieving and disdainful. "Our halcyon days of youth?"

"Yeah," Lyon said contentedly. "Those were the good days."

"Hmpf. For you, maybe. I don't remember any halcyon days of youth with you."

"Oh, come on." Lyon's brows knit together as he searched for a memory to prove his point, and his face lit up when he found one. "Remember that time when we were making sugar cookies and Ur cut them out into all these little people and then left us to decorate them? And we took that red icing and made a cookie massacre, breaking off their little arms and stuff and giving them frightened expressions. Man, she was pissed when she came back. Kind of morbid, looking back, but it was fun. We were little troublemakers. I think that was your idea, too. You've always been a relentless instigator."

Gray gave him an unimpressed look. "They were gingerbread men, not sugar cookies. I don't even like gingerbread. And I burned myself on the oven. And the massacre was a recreation of my home after Deliora tore through it."

Lyon opened his mouth, shut it again, gaped some more. "Uh… You remember it a lot differently… That's even more morbid."

Gray looked away, swirling the hot chocolate in his mug absently. "I was a morbid kid."

"Um… Well, let's try another one. I'm telling you, they were idyllic days, the pinnacle of our youth. How about that time Ur taught us how to make hot chocolate and we somehow managed to cause an explosion in the kitchen? Like, how does one make an explosion with hot chocolate? But it was pretty funny."

" _You_ were the one who exploded hot chocolate, because you sucked at it even more back then than you do now. And you might think it was funny, but  _I_ was the one who was splattered with an entire pan of scalding cocoa. I got some bad burns from that."

"…Really? I don't remember that part."

Gray leveled a flat look at him. "Yeah, that's because you only remember the  _idyllic,_   _halcyon_ parts of those days. I remember the rest of it."

Lyon was not willing to admit defeat just yet. "Okay, well, how about that time when we snuck outside early and built a giant snow monster right outside Ur's window?" He grinned and snickered at the memory. "We nearly gave her a heart attack when she woke up and saw it. It was awesome."

"Yeah, she yelled a lot and made us scrub the entire cabin top to bottom, which sucked. And the snow monster was also Deliora."

Lyon blinked at Gray for a moment longer and then deflated. It wasn't that he'd forgotten Gray had been an unhappy kid, but he wanted to think there had been some good memories there too. That not everything had linked back to Deliora or generally being miserable.

"Oh," he said.

Gray looked back and chewed on his lip, his dark eyes suddenly contrite and apologetic. "I'm sorry. If I had any… _halcyon days of youth_ , they were from before Deliora. After that…"

"Yeah. I get it."

They sat in silence for a couple more minutes before Gray sighed.

"I used to have nightmares a lot, remember?" he asked. Lyon nodded. He did, in fact, remember. "I'd start feeling trapped in the house, so I went outside a lot. I got better at sneaking around eventually, but in the beginning I'd sometimes wake you or Ur up. You thought you were being real sneaky, but sometimes I could tell that you were awake when I came back in."

Lyon frowned. He had often waited up when Gray left and pretended to be asleep when he returned, but he hadn't realized that he'd been caught out.

"Oh. Yeah. I wanted to make sure that you came back."

"Well, there was this one night that you actually followed me out, remember? I don't know why you did then when you didn't usually, but I guess you were trying to comfort me. And doing a terrible job of it."

"Yeah," Lyon said slowly. "Yeah, I remember. You punched me in the face."

"You told me to stop crying like a baby. What did you expect?"

Lyon smiled sheepishly. He really hadn't been all that good at mushy emotional stuff back then. "And somehow instead of comforting you, we got into a fistfight. Which then somehow turned into a snowball fight."

"Yup. We tossed those snowballs around for at least an hour before we finally woke Ur up and she came running out to yell at us and drag us back inside."

"She was really pissed off," Lyon remembered with a fond smile.

The corners of Gray's lips twitched upwards. "And we got horrible colds and were sick for over a week."

"Oh yeah, that sucked. And she made us do extra training the next day."

"But before that, she sat us down in front of the fireplace, wrapped us in blankets, started a fire, and made us hot chocolate." Gray laughed softly.

"She did, didn't she? But what I remember most… As we were coming in, you smiled. Just a little bit, it was gone almost as quickly as it came, but I swear you did. Unless you're going to say that I misremembered that too."

"No, you're right. Life still sucked, but I smiled because there was still something good in it anyway. It made me feel a little better. It's one of my favorite memories from back then." Gray's smile faded a little and he sighed. "They aren't halcyon days for me, Lyon. They were very bittersweet. But I mean, I still miss them. And looking back, I loved them. They weren't perfect or sugar-sweet or idyllic, but they were mine. And I'm fond of them because they're a reminder that even when life is a bitter pill to swallow, you can still find a silver lining. Bittersweet isn't always so bad."

Lyon stared at him in surprise, but then a slow, fond smile spread over his face. Maybe he didn't give Gray enough credit. The kid had his issues, but he sure had grown up. And, Lyon realized, he was proud of the little brat.

"Which is why," Gray continued with a new, sly smile, "you should work on your hot chocolate. It's too damn bitter to taste good."

Lyon scowled. So much for maturity. He took it all back.

…Mostly.


	9. Inebriated

* * *

**Inebriated**

_intoxicated with alcohol; drunk_

**_When Gray ends up drunk, Natsu is ready to jump on a convenient blackmail opportunity. He gets more than he bargained for._ **

* * *

Natsu was frustrated. It was late and he was ready to go home, but Happy had gone missing and he'd spent nearly half an hour searching the guild for the elusive feline. Eventually Wendy said that he'd disappeared with Charle, although the fond exasperation in her expression made Natsu think this was a non-consensual outing. But Happy would be Happy.

Well, Natsu wasn't waiting up. He was going to go home, eat whatever was in the fridge, and get some shut-eye.

Unfortunately, the world had other plans for him, in the form of a drunken Cana Alberona moseying on over and draping an arm across his shoulders.

"Hey, Natsu," she slurred.

Natsu sighed, wanting nothing more than to go home. "What's up, Cana?"

"So, I was having a drinking contest with Gray."

"Really? He doesn't usually drink."

That was a bit odd. Whatever stupid shit Gray might do, he did it sober. Natsu rarely saw him drink much of anything, and never enough to actually get drunk.

Hey, this could be a great opportunity! Drunk people did and said all sorts of weird stuff, and Natsu couldn't wait to see what Gray would be like. It seemed like a great opportunity to get blackmail.

Cana was less enthused. "Yeah, so I was thinking that I was so lucky to get a drinking buddy, right? 'Cept he was less interested in being a drinking buddy than in drinking himself into a stupor, so…he's, like, super drunk. He's too drunk to get himself home. He always makes sure I get home when I'm wasted, so I'mma do the same for him. Except he's, like, heavy as fuck and I'm too drunk for shit like this. So you're gonna do it instead."

"Wait, why me? I want to go home!"

"It's gotta be someone who can lug him around." She unslung her arm from Natsu's shoulders and stepped back, wobbling dangerously until she righted herself. She paused, bit her lip, and then added in a quieter voice, "He's upset over something. The guy will barely have a single drink with me when he's depressed over shit, but now he's totally trashed. You made a team with him now, right? And you've been friends for a long time too. If you're gonna be his teammate, it's kinda your job to figure out what's going on with him, yeah?"

Natsu was skeptical of this idea. This was Gray, after all—the guy was practically indestructible. But he wasn't going to argue with Cana, so he just shrugged his acquiescence and headed for the bar. If nothing else, it would be great to see what drunken antics Gray got up to. Perfect blackmail material.

He found Gray slumped over the bar, his forehead pressed into the counter.

"Hey, ice block?" When Gray didn't respond, Natsu shook his shoulder and tried again. "Hey. Gray."

Gray finally looked up and blinked at Natsu blearily, his dark eyes dull and uncomprehending. It was weird. They were usually clear and sharp, oftentimes guarded, and it was strange to see such an almost childlike vulnerability with the walls down and normal senses muddled.

"Oh," he said slowly. "Hi, Natsu."

He spoke awfully well for a drunk, a bit slurred but otherwise articulate. Maybe he wasn't as drunk as Cana was making him out to be. But then Natsu looked at those eyes again and decided that he was pretty drunk.

"Come on, I'm taking you home." Natsu wrapped an arm around his friend and hauled him to his feet. Gray swayed and lolled bonelessly until he found his footing, and even then had to lean on the dragon slayer heavily as they staggered out of the guild and into the night. Remembering Cana's instructions, Natsu asked, "So, you wanna tell me what's up?"

"Not supposed to talk to you," Gray mumbled.

"Huh? Why not?"

"I'm drunk," he said helpfully. "No filter. Say things I shouldn't. Bad idea to talk to you."

No filter, huh? This would be the perfect time to root out all of his embarrassing secrets. Natsu was enamored of this whole blackmail idea.

But then a thought, seeded by Cana's insistence that Gray was upset, hit him with all the subtlety of a brick to the face.

"Is this about Galuna?" he asked.

Shit, that should have been his first thought. That whole mess had only been a couple weeks before, but as with most things that were uncomfortable to think about, Natsu had pushed it out of his mind. But if Gray was getting drunk when he never did, if he was upset about something, it was almost certainly about that.

Gray's face crumpled, and Natsu flinched. Maybe he shouldn't press the point, but this was the only chance he had at getting some answers if he wanted them, now when Gray wasn't in his right mind. Once he sobered up and the walls were put back in place, he would never talk.

"Are you alright?" Natsu asked cautiously.

"Not really," Gray mumbled. He tripped over his own feet and stumbled until Natsu steadied him. "I didn't mean to kill her, you know. I really didn't."

"Gray…"

"She wasn't supposed to come after me."

"But if she didn't," Natsu said carefully, "you would be dead."

"Exactly."

He stopped short, making Gray stagger and almost topple over. They stared at each other in the light of the lamps lining the street, the darkness of the night pressing in all around.

"What," asked Natsu, "is that supposed to mean?"

Gray shrugged, the motion somehow unsteady. "I was the only one who should have gotten hurt."

"But you wouldn't have gone after Deliora if you didn't think you could win…right?"

He snorted. "I was eight. I'd been studying magic for a few months. I didn't have a chance, but the world was only big enough for one of us. I missed my parents, I was tired of the nightmares. And Ur and Lyon couldn't be enough unless I let them." He looked suddenly old and weary, sadness written into every line of his face. "Wish I'd let them. They weren't supposed to get hurt."

"But you–"

Gray wasn't listening. He might be surprisingly articulate and coherent, but now he was lost in his own little world and Natsu wasn't sure he could drag him back. Natsu reluctantly began helping him along down the street again, listening to his ramblings.

"God, I was selfish," Gray mumbled to himself as he staggered along. "Wish I could take it back. And now she fucking  _melted_. You saw that? She melted, because Lyon… Damn, I messed him up too. I missed him, though. I missed all of them, but especially him because he was still, you know, alive. But, I mean, he hates me, so… Feel bad about that. He hasn't done so well since I killed her."

Natsu's eye twitched. "Can you stop saying that you killed her? It was a really horrible accident—mistake, even—but you didn't  _kill_ her."

Gray snuffled loudly. "I'm a pretty horrible person."

"Wait, what? No, look–"

"I always just hurt people. And now we're suddenly a team? It's a bad idea. I don't belong on a team."

Natsu closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath through his nose. This was not good. He knew Gray had been upset over Galuna—and after everything with iced shell, it would be silly not to worry at least a little—but seeing the otherwise collected and indefatigable man laid so low was extremely disconcerting.

"Why not?" he asked resignedly. He had no idea what to do about any of this, so the only obvious option was to keep going.

"What could I bring to a team? I've got nothing. I'm just going to be a liability."

" _What?_ " Natsu's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "Are you kidding? You're a super fucking strong mage. You wouldn't be my rival if you weren't."

"I'm pretty useless," Gray said dejectedly. "And everyone I get close to dies, anyway. I only hurt people. I'm not cut out for this. I do better alone."

Natsu was so distracted staring at his friend in goggle-eyed amazement that he nearly walked straight into the front door. "What the  _fuck_?" he marveled. "God, Gray. You're always so… I dunno. Strong. Confident. What's gotten into you?"

"Not really," Gray mumbled. "Just pretend to be."

He noticed the door and reached out almost automatically. His hand slammed into the wood far to the side of the handle, but he furrowed his brow in concentration and tried again. This time he managed to grab the handle and twist it fruitlessly, before his hazy mind caught on to the fact that it was locked. A spark of magic molded into a makeshift key was all it took to unlock the door and send the boys stumbling inside.

Which was just as well, since Natsu was too stunned to take care of it himself.

What the  _hell_? The Gray he knew was strong in every sense of the word, confident in his abilities, and secure in his place in the guild and the team. And now he was...not. Could this really be the same man?

But drunk people said things they didn't mean, right? Or was it that they were more honest without their filters? No, this was obviously just a problem caused by the alcohol, because Gray wasn't…

An uncomfortable worm of worry wriggled in Natsu's stomach anyway.

"Gray, you have to know that you're a really strong person," he said awkwardly, not used to all this mushy touchy-feely stuff. He helped his friend to the bedroom, figuring he just needed to sleep this off and would be better in the morning. "I mean…the team wouldn't be the same without you. We count on you. You're not useless."

"I'm a really bad friend," Gray mumbled, falling onto his bed and curling into a miserable ball. He peered out at Natsu with dark, mournful eyes.

"Wh-what?" Natsu stuttered.

"I'm no good at being nice to people. I'm always mean. And then I just always fight you and call you names and insult you."

"But–but I do that to you too!"

"Yeah, but you're a good friend," Gray said with a sigh. "And I'm not. I'm sorry."

"That's not…" Natsu shook his head in disbelief. He had always thought that their odd friendship-rivalry was pretty perfect and Gray seemed to think so too, and he didn't understand why it was suddenly an issue. "You're a, um, a good friend too. I mean, yeah, we fight and annoy each other and stuff, but that's…fun? I don't know why you're suddenly being so weird about this. You know that I, um…

"Geez, this is hard. How do girls do this stuff? Look, you're my best friend, okay? And I trust you more than anyone and you'd be the first person I'd want by my side in a fight or whatever. I think you're really strong and everything, and I respect you a lot. Okay?"

He took a deep breath, his shoulders slumping in relief at having gotten that all out. God, emotional stuff was hard.

Something caught his attention, and he leaned forward to peer at Gray in disbelief. "Are you…asleep? You asshole! How dare you make me go through all that work and then fall asleep?"

Sighing, he leaned back and regarded Gray wearily. The ice mage looked smaller and more childlike while asleep, especially when all curled up like that. More unguarded and vulnerable.

Well, fuck. What was Natsu supposed to do now? Go home and jump into bed and wake up in the morning like nothing had happened? But what else was he supposed to do, anyway? Talk to Gray when he sobered up? About what? This was probably just a product of the alcohol, not Gray's normal state of mind, and bringing it up later would be awkward. And even if Gray  _did_ feel that way, how could Natsu fix that? Or  _should_  he? He wasn't cut out for this shit.

Natsu passed a hand over his face and rubbed at his eyes wearily. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

Gray woke up feeling like he'd gotten run over by a train. A really long train. With spikes on the wheels.

Pulling himself out of bed was more of an effort than it had any right to be, but he managed to stagger into the bathroom and scrub at his teeth halfheartedly with a toothbrush while splashing cold water onto his face in an attempt to wake his brain up and shock the headache out. Geez, what had he been thinking? He'd gotten totally trashed. With his luck, he'd done or said something horribly embarrassing…or that it was better no one knew. There was a reason he didn't drink.

He peered at his reflection in the mirror blearily, not impressed by the wan and pinched features, red-rimmed and dark-circled eyes, and miserable expression. Ugh. How had he even gotten home? No way had Cana dragged him here. Had he made it on his own?

His musings were interrupted by the sudden realization that his apartment was on fire.

Cursing under his breath, he stumbled back out of the bathroom and flung the bedroom door open, looking around wildly for the source of the acrid stench of smoke filling the air. He froze, mouth half open, and gawked at the sight of Natsu standing in his kitchen burning bacon.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty." Natsu didn't look up, and his voice was distinctly devoid of that carefree, cheery note it usually had. "About time you got up."

"You… What the hell are you doing in my apartment?"

"I brought you home last night. I slept on your couch."

Natsu jammed one end of a charred bacon strip into his mouth, and waved another in Gray's general direction in a way that was probably supposed to be tantalizing. Gray pulled a face and shook his head, not understanding the dragon slayer's love of food charred far beyond the point of being edible.

"Your house isn't  _that_ far," Gray said, unimpressed. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest as he watched the interloper eat his ruined bacon.

"Yeah, well, I wanted to talk to you."

"You wanted to…talk?  _You?_ Why?" Gray stared at the other man like he'd grown a second head. Since when did Natsu  _talk_? A disturbing realization hit him as fragmented memories of the previous night began slowly filtering back into his brain. "Okay, you do realize that I was drunk, right? So whatever I said that freaked you out… I was drunk."

Natsu dropped the rest of the bacon onto a plate and turned to Gray. His eyes were hard and deadly serious.

"Is it true? That running after Deliora was some kind of suicide quest?"

"What?" Gray stiffened, sensing dangerous waters. "I don't–"

"Don't lie to me."

Gray opened his mouth, closed it. Natsu closed his eyes.

"It's not… I didn't think about it like that, exactly. Look, this is ancient history and–"

"Is it? Because you started talking about how you shouldn't be part of the team because you're useless and only hurt people."

Oh, fuck. Damage control time.

"I was drunk, remember? People say stupid shit when they're drunk."

"Yeah," Natsu said quietly, suddenly sounding tired and sad as he looked away, "but I don't usually believe drunk people when they say stupid shit."

"I…"

"You've really felt like that? This whole time?"

"It's not…" Gray groaned and slid down to sit on the floor with his back to the wall. He pressed his hands to his eyes, wishing his headache would go away. "It's not always like that. I've been in a mood since Galuna, and drinking always just makes me more melancholy and everything seems worse. That's not, like, my normal state of mind."

"But drinking doesn't create those kinds of problems out of thin air, does it? Just makes the ones that are already there get worse."

Gray focused on his breathing and wished this conversation wasn't happening. He had enough insecurities to fill an ocean, and he didn't want to pick at the scabs. Galuna had just brought them to the forefront, shaken him out of his comfortable complacency and reminded him of the things that sometimes kept him up at night.

He was strong, a survivor. But he was also weak, and he hated it when those gnawing doubts got the better of him.

There was a soft scuffling sound as Natsu drifted over and crouched down to hesitate and then tentatively touch him on the arm. "Do you…really think that you're a bad friend?"

Gray dropped his hands and immediately winced as he found himself looking directly into Natsu's mournful eyes. There was something unnaturally sad and almost insecure lurking in their depths, and Gray hated himself for putting that quality there.

"It has nothing to do with you," he mumbled.

A funny expression flashed across Natsu's face, but it quickly twisted into anger as he lifted a hand and punched Gray in the face, sending his head slamming back into the wall. As if his headache wasn't already bad enough.

"It has nothing to do with me?" Natsu repeated, furious. "Of course it does. Friendship is a two-way street, asshole. Now that you're sober and awake, you're going to listen to me. Shit happens. You had bad shit happen to you. I get it. It sucks and I'm sorry. But you are one of the strongest people I've ever met, and I have no idea how you do it when you're so fucking insecure. Or maybe it's  _because_ you're so fucking insecure.

"But seriously. You want to say that you don't belong on our team? We count on you, you fool, so don't you dare think about backing out. You want to say that you're a bad friend? Fuck you. You're my best friend, and you have no right to suggest otherwise. You are strong and I respect and trust you, yeah? So you're going to stand back up just like you always do, we're going to figure shit out together, and you're going to be okay."

Gray stared at Natsu with wide eyes, one hand lightly touching where he'd been hit. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard the dragon slayer string together so many achingly heartfelt words at once in the entire decade they'd known each other. His heart clenched up in a funny way.

"I…"

Natsu's eyes softened finally, the fire fading away, and he held out a hand. "You ready to come hang out with us again? The team's pretty boring without you."

Gray swallowed hard and took the proffered hand. Natsu stood and pulled Gray up with him, giving him a small, toothy smile.

And though he had to inconspicuously wipe at his eyes and hide a sniffle, Gray smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually deal with drunkenness and all that unless it serves a purpose, but occasionally I dabble. I do take it pretty seriously, I'm just looking at a different side of it here and using it as a tool to show something else. To be honest, I probably won't deal with it again for a long time lol


	10. Jealousy

**Jealousy**

_**1.**  _ _an unhappy or angry feeling of wanting to have what someone else has_

**_2._ ** _a feeling of unhappiness and anger caused by a belief that a loved one might be unfaithful_

**_Sometimes it felt like Gray saw green half the time, and he hated it._ **

* * *

If Gray was a better person, a better friend, then he would be happy for his friends instead of jealous of them. To be fair, he  _was_ happy for them. He wasn't  _completely_ heartless. All the same, it felt like he saw green half the time and he hated it.

When Natsu could just brush off the most traumatic issues within a day or two and bounce back to normal without any lasting ill effects, Gray was glad that he could handle things so well without getting bogged down with grudges or depression. He was also jealous, because he knew that he wasn't half as resilient. His coping skills, quite frankly, sucked. Even though he could put on a brave face so that everyone else would think he was okay after a day or two of his tragedies, he probably wasn't. Definitely wasn't. Some things still haunted him years and years later, and he wished that he could just adopt Natsu's carefree attitude toward life.

When Erza could beat him and Natsu and anyone else into the ground, Gray was honestly proud of her. He was also jealous. Not so much because she could beat him without a problem, but because she was so  _strong_ , not only physically and magically, but in her heart. And Gray… Well, Gray didn't always feel like he was. And watching Erza, and even Natsu, pull off impossible wins and continue to get stronger and stronger and stronger sometimes made him feel like he was being left behind.

When Lucy had joined the guild and immediately fit in like she was born to be there, Gray was happy for her. He was also jealous, because she had found her place in the guild in a heartbeat and somehow seemed to belong there even more than he ever had. Sometimes he envied her ability to get along with everyone and fit in everywhere. She'd settled into the guild so quickly, and it had taken Gray  _years_ to get even half as comfortable there as she was now. Sure, that was mostly his fault because he'd been an angry, grieving mess after everything with Deliora and his family and Ur. Then again, Lucy's childhood hadn't been all rainbows and fluffy kittens either, but she hadn't let it cripple her the same way Gray had let his cripple him.

Then again…most of his friends had some kind of tragedy in their past, didn't they? And they were all pretty well-adjusted now. Not that everything was perfect or they hadn't had to deal with issues of their own, but they had coped far better than he had. They had moved on with their lives, while Gray was still stuck wallowing in the past. They were always moving forward, growing, getting stronger, becoming better people. And Gray was just…there. Or maybe half there. Sometimes it felt like he was only half alive anyway.

Out of everything, that was probably what he was the most jealous of. He was glad that his friends were flourishing instead of languishing like him, but he certainly envied that because he wanted… He wanted to be there with them, moving forward instead of being left behind.

There were also lots of other little, stupid things that he was jealous of, though. Sometimes he envied their genuine smiles and carefree laughs, their sunny dispositions and resiliency, their ability to make a home for themselves in a world that Gray had never been able to fully call his own.

It kind of made him feel like a selfish jerk.

It wasn't like these were things he was always thinking about, but they definitely crossed his mind from time to time, as much as he tried to ignore them. It wasn't a nice feeling.

But then something would happen and Natsu's smile would fade or Erza's armor would crack or Lucy's confidence would shatter, and all that jealousy would fly out the window. Those were the moments when Gray realized that he would give anything, do anything, to give them back the very things he envied. If he could, he'd give them his own smiles and armor and confidence, if only because he wanted to see them happy more than he wanted anything else. More than he wanted their resiliency or strength or sociability for himself.

In the end, he loved them more than he loved himself. And even when the jealousy made him want to take, take, take…in the end, he would still give up everything for them.


	11. Killjoy

* * *

**Killjoy**

_a person who deliberately spoils the enjoyment of others through resentful or overly sober behavior_

**_Natsu is bored to tears, and it seems like everyone is out to spoil his fun._ **

* * *

Natsu was bored. Not a little bit bored, but  _bored_ -bored. Bored stiff, to tears, to death. The kind of bored that made him want to bang his head into the wall until he was too brain damaged to understand what being bored even meant anymore. It was going to drive him  _crazy_.

Normally these were the times when he would hunt down the ice princess and pick a fight, but the ice princess wasn't here, was he? Natsu was very resentful of this. Gray should sure as hell be here when Natsu was bored enough to need him as a diversion. It was very inconsiderate of him not to be.

Lucy had dragged Natsu and Happy out on a job to get the jewels to pay her rent, and they'd returned to find that Gray and Erza had left after them on a job of their own. First of all, when did those two ever take jobs alone together? Second of all, they had a lot of nerve to go on their own instead of waiting for the team. So maybe Natsu and Happy and Lucy took jobs together without the others sometimes, but that didn't mean Gray and Erza could do the same thing. Or, at least, they had no right to do it while Natsu was bored and desperately needed them around to harass.

Right now, Natsu would give anything to be on their job with them. Anything to relieve the tedium. They were probably having tons of fun right now, beating up bad guys without him. Jerks. It must be a good job, because they'd been gone before Natsu and the others returned and had been missing for another two days. During that time, Natsu's boredom had built and built to staggering proportions. He hated to admit it, but life was boring without having the ice block around to beat up.

"Stop glaring at the door, Natsu," Lucy said with a sigh, fanning herself with her hand. A heat wave was passing through, and her damp hair clung to her forehead. "It's not going to make them walk in any faster."

On cue, the doors banged open and Erza strolled on in, followed by a rather wilted-looking Gray. Natsu immediately perked up.

"Look at that!" he said cheerily.

"…Wow." Lucy shook her head, her surprise fading to something more cynical. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised—it's Fairy Tail. But it would be more impressive if you hadn't been glaring at the door for days. They were bound to walk in eventually."

Killjoy.

Natsu jumped to his feet and waved enthusiastically. "How'd the job go?"

"Pretty well," said Erza as she plopped down onto the bench across from Lucy and sighed in relief as she rested her aching limbs. "How was yours?"

"Natsu managed to lose us most of our reward," Lucy said sourly. "At this rate, I have no idea how I'm going to pay my rent on time."

"I suppose we'll have to take another job soon and try keeping the boys in line."

"Easier said than done."

Natsu brushed off the girls, uninterested in complaints about his destructiveness. Those were getting old now. He focused instead on Gray and coiled up like a cat ready to pounce.

Gray's pale skin was marred by a rosy flush and his dark hair was damp with sweat. His eyes drooped even more than usual, and he collapsed onto the bench heavily and dropped his chin onto the table.

"Oh, Gray, you don't look so good!" Lucy exclaimed, her eyes widening. "The heat getting to you?"

"A little," he mumbled.

Natsu snickered. "The ice princess can't handle the heat."

Even Gray's glare was halfhearted and unenergetic. How disappointing.

"Screw off, ash for brains."

Well, this was no good. Natsu was  _bored_ , and Gray was supposed to entertain him. He had waited so long for the popsicle to show back up, and now he was going to just sit there like a boring lump because of a little heat? No way.

"I'll go get you some ice water," Lucy volunteered.

"Fight me!" Natsu said at the same time.

Disbelief shone in Gray's eyes as they darted between Lucy and Natsu. "Thanks, and no thanks."

"Come on!" Natsu whined. "I'm so bored, and I've been waiting for you to come back for days and days and  _days_."

"We were only gone for three days, and you weren't even here for part of them."

"But I'm  _bored_! Let's fight!"

"Go away."

Gray turning down a fight? Now there was something new.

Killjoy.

That couldn't be allowed to stand.

Natsu jumped to his feet and prodded Gray none too gently. "Come on, stripper. Let's go. I know the heat makes you super weak and you don't want me to kick your ass, but I'm ready to go."

"…What?" Gray lifted his head and his eyes narrowed. His voice was dangerously quiet and calm, with that underlying current of resentment and building anger that Natsu could pick up on after years of experience.

Natsu grinned, knowing he'd baited his friend well enough now. "I guess if you're feeling too weak, we could postpone this until after the weather cools down. We wouldn't want you to melt."

" _That's it_." Gray jumped to his feet, stumbling only slightly with exhaustion, and rounded on the dragon slayer with burning eyes and a ferocious scowl. "Bring it on, squinty eyes!"

Natsu laughed triumphantly and ducked under the incoming fist. Now they were talking. He managed to land a hit—poor bastard really was wilted from the heat and tired out from his job—but then they fell back into that old familiar pattern of hitting and blocking, each giving as good as they got. The normal shouting started up as everyone scrambled to get out of the way and a spark of life flickered back into Gray's eyes, burning through a little of the bleariness.

And then something snagged the back of Natsu's collar, and he found himself dragged backwards with a yelp. Looking up, he found himself staring into Erza's furious eyes and gulped loudly. She had grabbed both him and Gray in her iron grip, and her expression was thunderous.

"Just what do you two think you're doing?" she demanded as she released them and crossed her arms.

"Um, fighting?" Natsu suggested weakly.

"Not anymore, you aren't." She glared at Gray and said, " _You_  should know better." He wilted again under her scrutiny, and she turned back to Natsu. "You can't just provoke fights with him because you're bored. Honestly, he even said that he didn't want to fight today! A good friend wouldn't make him fight when he's so worn out. Honestly. No fighting. Sit down and behave."

Gray complied at once, sinking back onto the bench and gratefully accepting a glass of water from Lucy. He rubbed the cool condensation on his forehead and took a sip, clearly ready to abandon the fight he hadn't been thrilled about in the first place.

Natsu wasn't as easily assuaged. What right did Erza have to come in and spoil his fun?

"Killjoy," he muttered as he turned away.

"…What was that?"

He froze, realizing his mistake too late, and slowly lifted his gaze to meet Erza's. Her eyes were cold, but fire burned within their depths.

"Uh… Nothing?"

"Killjoy?" she repeated softly, a dangerous edge of steel underlying the word. "I'll show you a killjoy, Natsu."

Natsu had the sudden feeling that dealing with a killjoy would have been preferable to getting killed by one. Wisely, he chose that moment to turn and run out of the guild, a furious Erza hot on his heels.


	12. Languish

**Languish**

**_1._ ** _to lose strength or vigor; grow weak_

**_2._ ** _to become listless and depressed; pine_

**_3._ ** _to suffer from miserable or depressing conditions_

**_4._ ** _to remain unattended or be neglected_

_**And then came the day when they left him behind. No one looked up as Gray slipped out of the guild. He wondered how long it would take them to notice that he was gone, or if they'd even notice at all.** _

* * *

The defeat of Zeref and Acnologia should have been the moment of triumph from which things would inevitably improve, not the point where things began slowly sliding downhill. To be fair, most everyone besides Gray seemed to be flourishing, and even Gray had done alright for a while.

There had been raucous celebrations, everyone had been in high spirits, and Lucy had even published a book. And everyone had begun pairing off. Gajeel and Levy were the first of the bunch to officially get together, and were now even expecting a kid. Happy had finally won over Charle, although their courtship contained far less fish than might be expected of Happy. Lucy finally got tired of Natsu avoiding anything even remotely emotional and nearly demanded that they start officially dating, and now they were the guild's golden couple. Jellal had eventually sucked it up and taken advantage of his pardon to court Erza, although there was a running bet on how forcefully Erza had encouraged this. Even Juvia had eventually given up on Gray—at least partly—and run off to Lyon. Gray wasn't sure how well that relationship would work out, but Lyon seemed happy enough and it got Juvia out of his hair since she spent so much time at Lamia Scale now.

Everyone seemed happy, and things were good. But things were also changing, and Gray wasn't sure that he liked it. All his friends were suddenly pairing up and becoming wrapped up in their budding romances, and he found himself left out in the cold.

At first it was fun to see everyone figuring out how to build their relationships. But budding romances took a lot of time and energy and effort, and Gray suddenly found himself on his own much too often. Natsu and Lucy went on dates and jobs, Happy tried to convince Charle to eat his fish, Erza ran off on occasion to do missions with Jellal and Crime Sorcière, Lyon was busy with Juvia at Lamia Scale. Team jobs became less frequent. Once or twice a month Erza would materialize to demand that they all go on a job for old time's sake, but other than that, everyone did their own thing.

Gray woke up one day and realized that he was alone.

He wasn't, not really, but it felt like it. Maybe it was his fault more than the team's, because he was overreacting. It wasn't like they were trying to ignore him or whatever. They still talked and hung out sometimes. It was just less frequent, and there was a new dynamic that he felt left out of.

This realization was enough to tip him over into a dark place, although if he really thought back, he should have noticed the signs that one was creeping up on him. He thought about how he was losing all his friends—which was not entirely true, of course, but that was what it felt like—which eventually led to thoughts of when he'd first lost Lyon, which naturally led to thoughts of Ur and his parents, which led to thoughts of what had become of his father with Tartaros, which led to thoughts of the devil slayer magic and Natsu, which led to–

Before, when things had gotten bad and he'd begun slipping into depressive phases, he would end up hanging out with the team and they'd eventually be able to draw him out of it, whether they realized it or not. Now… He looked forward to the rare team jobs with all the quiet desperation of a drowning man, but he'd begun finding that he felt disconnected from the others, left on the outside of their new relationships with each other. He didn't want to seem needy, to let on how much he craved their attention and company, so he kept to himself and didn't pester them about hanging out or going on jobs or any of that.

But now, with the sadness creeping back in, he worked up the nerve to slide into the seat beside Lucy.

"Hey, Lucy," he said, looking around for the others. Natsu was on the other side of the hall, but he didn't see Erza or Happy.

"Hi, Gray!" she said brightly. "What's up?"

"Oh, not much. I was just wondering if you guys wanted to take a job or something?"

She pulled a face. "Sorry, I'm stuck on a date with Natsu in a few minutes. And I don't think Erza or Happy are in at the moment. Maybe another time?"

"Oh." He tried not to let the depths of his disappointment show on his face. He had always been more than a little secretive, but there had been a time when his team could have picked up on when he was asking for something because there was something wrong, a time when they had listened to him and really  _heard_. "That's fine, then."

Lucy grinned and winked at him. "You're on your own too much. We might just have to get you a girlfriend, Gray."

This was received with laughter and catcalls by everyone who heard the comment, and Gray forced a twisted facsimile of a smile. He didn't want a girlfriend. He just wanted his friends. He just didn't want to feel alone.

He slipped out of the guild amidst the laughter and spent the rest of the day curled up in his bed with the covers pulled over his head.

When Erza next called for a team job a couple weeks later, Gray declined.

"Sorry," he said. "I've got plans."

Natsu laughed out loud. "You? Since when do  _you_ have plans?"

Gray's fake smile froze and twisted into something that ought not to have looked like a smile at all. There was no need to rub his face in it. Had they even realized the extent of it? How bad he had gotten?

Of course not. Natsu was just being an idiot. But it cut deep, because it was true.

"I'm allowed to do things without you," he said, turning away. "You do things without me all the time."

Maybe it was just as well that they weren't listening well enough to hear the quiet accusation.

He avoided team jobs like the plague after that. There were fights and snide comments and begging, questions about why he was avoiding them, but he weathered it with a grim stoicism and every excuse in the book. Being with the team only made him feel more alone now.

Eventually, they would just ask him out of habit and not bother protesting when he declined. They were giving up on him, like he'd given up on them.

He busied himself with solo jobs to the point where Makarov sat him down and told him to slow down before he killed himself. Under threat of being suspended from active duty, he reluctantly slowed down the pace. But that gave him time to think, and that only made things worse. He needed to throw himself into something, to summon up a frenetic energy and focus single-mindedly on a task so that he could ignore the fact that his life was falling apart.

Sometimes he wandered the streets, sometimes he hid away in his apartment with the lights off, sometimes he just sat in the corner of the guild and watched with dull eyes as everyone else lived their lives. It was pathetic, really. Now that he'd lost his momentum, he didn't have the energy to do much of anything. He stopped taking jobs almost entirely. It seemed like a monumental effort just to get out of bed in the morning, and sometimes he didn't even manage that much.

He sat back and pined after his friends, only feeling worse when he realized that he'd been just as instrumental in the degradation of those relationships as they had been. When they talked to him, he'd summon up whatever little spark of energy he had left to engage them without making it obvious how miserable he was.

He missed them. He wanted to try putting in the effort to rebuild things, but he was too heartsick and didn't have the energy or heart.

And then one day, the team went out on one of their periodic jobs and didn't invite him. He stared after them, wondering if they'd finally given up on him for good or if they'd just forgotten him. He supposed they were well within their rights to stop asking when he always said no, but there was something final about it. The guild was as loud and rowdy as always, but no one noticed him hiding in the corner, watching the door with dead eyes.

They probably had, he suspected, forgotten. He had become such a ghost these days that no one seemed to notice him anymore.

No one looked up as he slipped out of the guild and went home. He wondered how long it would take them to notice that he was gone, or if they'd even notice at all.

* * *

A knock broke the oppressive stillness. Gray considered ignoring it—getting up and answering the door seemed like an awful lot of work—but then decided that maybe he'd take anything to break the dull haze of the past…however long it had been. A long time. It was hard to tell, though, when time passed so slowly and twisted about in all sorts of serpentine ways. Given that he'd spent most of that time sleeping or lying in bed and staring at the ceiling or wandering about aimlessly, he could use something to break up the monotony.

Pulling himself out of bed was a slow and arduous process, and he shuffled over to the front door in no particular hurry, unfazed by the repetitious knocking. He opened the door just a crack and peered out blearily at Erza, Lucy, Natsu, and Happy.

"Oh," he said dully.

"Are you going to let us in?" Erza asked, raising an eyebrow.

He considered it lethargically. "I guess so."

He opened the door further and shuffled back a few paces. His friends poured inside and looked around with frowns.

"Why are the lights off?" Lucy asked, flicking the light switch.

Gray winced and narrowed his eyes against the sudden influx of bright light, not used to it after having spent so long in the dark.

"No one has seen you in a while," Erza said. "We wanted to check in and make sure you were alright."

Natsu wrinkled his nose. "It smells like you haven't been out of here in days. And geez, what happened to this place? You usually keep it so neat."

Gray looked around blankly. A layer of dust coated all his furniture and it seemed like half his belongings were dislodged, crooked or fallen to the ground where he'd bumped them on his wanderings and then ignored them.

Normally he liked things pristine and neat and rigidly ordered, everything in its proper place. For a second he felt that familiar itch at seeing things out of place, but then it faded back into the hollowness. That seemed like a silly thing to get worked up about now.

"How long have you been in here?" Happy asked, shaking his head.

"What day is it?"

"…Tuesday?"

"Day of the month."

"…The twelfth."

Gray slowly thought that through, dusting off his unused brain and idly counting back the days. "Nearly three and a half weeks, then."

"Good grief." Worry flashed in Erza's eyes. "And no one came to see why you were gone? What have you been doing?"

"Not much," he mumbled.

"Have you even been eating? Look how thin you are! You clearly haven't been taking care of yourself. When was the last time you ate a meal or took a shower?"

He just shrugged. A long time, probably.

Lucy leaned forward until he met her eyes. "Are you alright? What's wrong, Gray?"

Gray considered it. Normally he would be hesitant to say anything at all on the subject, but what did it really matter, anyway? He was just languishing here on his own, fading away until only a shadow was left, and he didn't know how much longer he could go on by himself. Maybe they were ready to listen.

"Not really," he said with a tired sigh. "I've been in a mood, I guess. Feeling down, disconnected. It's been lonely. I miss the team. But it's not the same even when we're together."

Lucy nibbled on her lower lip. "Hey, Natsu? I think we might have to postpone our anniversary trip for a couple days."

"I'll tell Jellal to wait a day or two," Erza muttered. "Maybe we can take a job or something."

Gray's lips slowly pressed together. He wasn't sure he wanted to take a job. Hadn't he been avoiding them for a reason? He didn't want to go only to feel more alone.

"Lucy, why don't you make him something to eat?" Erza continued. "We'll get this place cleaned up, and get you cleaned up too. You'll feel better once you've eaten and gotten cleaned up and you get out of here."

Suddenly everything was in motion as everyone scrambled to clean or cook or drag Gray along to take care of himself. They cared about him, sure, but everything they did was infused with a sense of duty, an obligation to take care of the estranged friend. They would postpone their dates and cook him meals and drag him out into the daylight…and generally make him into a burden, a chore to take care of before they could move on with their lives. Gray didn't want caretakers. He had only wanted his friends.

He smiled to himself, a small, bitter thing. "You're still not listening," he said.

But the words were lost in all the chaos, and no one heard


	13. Maim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Otherwise known as: The AU No One Asked For Where Cobra Attacks Gray Instead of Erza. Poor kid.

* * *

**Maim**

_**1**. _ _to deprive of the use of some part of the body by wounding or the like; cripple_

**_2._ ** _to impair; make essentially defective_

_**Lyon was a pragmatist at heart. If the arm had to go to save Gray's life, then it had to go. But he couldn't bear to think of what that would do to Gray.** _

* * *

Gray was busy arguing with Natsu when the ship appeared overhead, although he kept finding himself distracted by Lyon's presence on the other side of the group. He still wasn't entirely sure what to make of that. Seeing Lyon walk in as one of Lamia Scale's representatives to fight Oración Seis had definitely been a shock, and now he seemed to lurk in some place between friend and foe that Gray didn't understand.

But then one of the Trimens—damned if Gray could tell them apart when they were all equally annoying—said something about Christina and pointed at the sky. It actually was a very impressive flying ship…at least until it was shot down in a number of equally impressive explosions. He suspected that the impressive destruction of the impressive ship was going to put Blue Pegasus in impressive debt.

His musings were cut short by the appearance of half a dozen particularly nasty-looking characters who could be no one but the infamous Oración Seis.

"Let's go beat them up!" Natsu said, charging forward.

Gray was hot on his heels. "Not without me, you aren't."

Racer moved like lightning, batting the two mages away like one might swat a fly, but Gray wasn't one to give up so easily and the battle was on. Around him the fight spread to the other gathered mages, but he had his hands full just trying to track Racer's movements.

And mostly failing. The bastard moved too fast for the eye to see, and he managed to hit Gray again and again and again. Gray stumbled back, panting and aching, and swung wildly at the colorful blur streaking past. He missed again and cursed.

Something moved behind him and he spun around, automatically lashing out in a vain attempt to land a hit on his attacker. But he paused for a fatal moment, surprise drawing him up short as he came face to face not with Racer but an enormous purple snake.

In that second of hesitation the serpent struck, lunging forward and sinking its fangs into his lower arm. Blinding pain exploded from the site, tingling through his nerves and searing through his veins.

Gray struck blindly in desperation to get the beast off him, but it was already retreating. He clapped his hand over the bite, grinding his teeth together at the pain, but then hurriedly settled into a defensive stance.

The purple-haired man beside the snake just waved him off. "No need for that. You're already dying." He smiled in a particularly unpleasant fashion. "The venom will travel through your body and paralyze you, and then you'll die in agony."

Gray could feel it already, the poison being pumped through his body by his racing heart that was already working overtime from the adrenaline of the fight. But he wasn't one to just curl up and die, so he staggered a step forward and lashed out with whatever half-formed magic he had left. The snake's tail flicked around and slammed into his chest with enough force to crack his ribs.

He flew through the air like a ragdoll and crashed into the thick trunk of an oak. He squeezed his eyes shut and bit through his lip, his mouth filling with the coppery tang of blood. His breath came in short, harsh gasps, and he curled around his poisoned arm.

He was through. The pain threw him into a nightmarish daze from which he found it too difficult to rouse himself. He didn't want to think about what his costly mistake was doing to him, so he let the pain cloud his mind and drown out his clamoring thoughts.

He cracked his eyes halfway open just in time to see the dark guild retreat, carrying a flailing Wendy with them and, by extension, Happy, since the girl had grabbed him along the way. Gray twitched, but there was nothing he could do about it.

"Gray! Gray, what happened?" Erza hurried over and dropped to her knees beside him, her worried eyes searching for the source of his obvious agony.

He reluctantly uncurled himself to hold out his arm. Two holes marred the skin halfway between the wrist and elbow of his right arm, and he stared in fascination at the streaks of purple running along the lines of his veins in sharp contrast to the deathly pallor of his skin.

"Whoa, you're turning purple!" Natsu exclaimed. "Cool!"

"Not cool," Gray rasped. "It's poison, idiot. Or venom? Do snakes count as venomous? I guess it doesn't really matter."

He shook his head fitfully and bit down on his tongue to put a stop to his pain-fueled rambling.

"Oh shit," Erza mumbled, poking gingerly at his arm.

Gray sucked in a breath that made a sound embarrassingly close to a whine and feebly tried to pull away.

"That doesn't look good," Lyon said with a frown as he drifted over to take a look.

Gray didn't deign to respond to such an asinine comment. He watched, sickened, as the faintly glowing purple poison spread up his arm. His skin was burning, his blood was on fire, his bones were melting. He bit down harder, and a trickle of blood escaped the corner of his mouth and dribbled down his chin.

Erza's eyes tracked its progress. "It's moving fast," she murmured, tearing her gaze away to assess the poison's movement. "Maybe we can try a tourniquet to slow it down. I hate to say it, but we might have to amputate if we can't find a way to get rid of it quickly."

Gray's breath caught in his throat and his heart pounded ever harder at the thought. "No," he said harshly.

"Calm down," Erza said in alarm. "You're going to make it spread faster if you get worked up."

"Better your arm than your life," Lyon said bluntly.

Gray was not convinced. "No."

"If it–"

"I can't use her magic like that," he hissed, eyes flashing. "Although I suppose that's what you wanted, isn't it?"

Lyon flinched back, eyes widening and mouth twisting into a funny expression. Gray looked away, almost glad to be distracted by another wave of blinding pain.

Maybe it was an unfair thing to say, even if he thought Lyon had wanted exactly that on Galuna. But Gray was past the point of being fair. Fair wasn't losing the only thing he had left of Ur.

"Wendy could heal him," Charle said into the awkward silence.

Everyone stared at her.

"How?" Natsu asked.

"She's the sky dragon slayer," the cat said. "She has healing magic."

That shy little slip of a girl was a dragon slayer? Unexpected, although Gray couldn't summon up true amazement when he felt like he was dying. Air hissed between his teeth and he curled inward convulsively.

"Let's go rescue her, then!" Natsu said with all the enthusiastic determination of the eternally optimistic.

"I'll stay here in case…" Erza trailed off.

A cool hand brushed along Gray's feverish skin, running along his forehead. "Hang on," Lyon said quietly. "We'll find her and fix this."

Gray wanted to believe him.

* * *

Lyon raced through the forest, heedless of Sherry tagging along behind or his own aching body. He and Sherry had fought Racer to give Natsu the chance to get Wendy back to Gray, but he couldn't tamp down the fear until he saw for himself that things had worked out.

He was a pragmatist at heart. If the arm had to go to save Gray's life, then it had to go. But he couldn't bear to think of what that would do to Gray.

He burst into the clearing and stopped short. Gray was slumped back against a tree while Erza, Wendy, Natsu, and the Exceeds looked on with varying expressions of grief and guilt. Gray's expression was stony, his eyes cold but vacant. He was conspicuously short one arm.

Lyon tried not to stare. "What happened?" he demanded, rushing over and trying to ignore the blood-drenched leaves squelching beneath his boots. "I thought…"

"It was spreading too fast," Erza mumbled. Her expression was shell-shocked. "I didn't… I was scared it would reach his heart before Wendy could get here. I wouldn't be able to do anything once it got past his arm, and…" Her face crumpled. "I'm so sorry, Gray," she moaned.

Gray said nothing, only stared ahead blankly. Lyon was surprised he was still conscious at all.

"I still don't understand why you can't fix it," Natsu said, defiant yet plaintive.

Wendy shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. "I can't reattach it. I healed what I could—what is left. There won't be any worse damage or infection or blood loss, but what's already done… I'm sorry, Gray-san. I wish I could…"

Gray shook his head with the slightest of motions. He wasn't writhing in agony like earlier and didn't seem to be in as much pain as would be expected after such a brutal procedure—due, undoubtedly, to Wendy's intervention—but the pain lurking beneath the fragile sheen of ice in his eyes was bottomless.

"You should go," he said finally, his voice an emotionless rasp. "They'll need all the help they can get taking these guys out."

Erza winced. "But you–"

"Will stay here. I'll be utterly useless, anyway."

"You're not useless!" Erza protested.

Gray silenced her with a flat look. "Just go. I don't need you all hanging around uselessly. Go help them."

"S-someone should st-stay with you," Wendy stuttered, wringing her hands together.

"No. Just…no."

Everyone exchanged looks, knowing he was right but at the same time knowing that someone really needed to stay with him. Lyon nodded and dropped to the ground beside Gray, wincing at the sticky redness that began seeping through his clothing.

"Go away," Gray said halfheartedly, his voice raw even though his eyes stayed stubbornly dry.

But when the others nodded in acknowledgement and reluctantly departed, Lyon drew his knees to his chest and stayed a silent observer to the war raging behind Gray's eyes.

* * *

Gray hated life. He'd almost rather be dead. He couldn't stand the feeling of being crippled, broken. He hated how even the simplest everyday tasks were now a struggle. He hated how his neat handwriting was reduced to his non-dominant hand's painstaking and messy scrawl. He hated how everyone looked at him differently and shot him pitying glances. He hated how he was useless in any kind of fight.

He especially hated that his magic—Ur's magic—was beyond his reach. He could feel it inside him, curling about his heart and itching to be freed, but he couldn't mold it. He'd heard talk of phantom limbs before, but he only really noticed the phenomenon when he went to mold and it felt like he  _should_ be able to make the proper gestures but couldn't.

He withdrew into himself. He preferred to avoid the guild now that he wasn't a proper mage and had to deal with all his friends' grief and guilt and pity, but he had to go on a regular basis or everyone would worry.

They drove him crazy. Lucy would always hover and offer her help for every little thing, Happy had offered a lake's worth of sympathy fish, and everyone gave him those looks and tried to soothe his anger at the world. One of the worst moments had been in the very beginning, when Natsu had demanded a fight and then hesitated, the realization that Gray was too broken now flashing over his face. And Erza, whose guilt followed her like a cloud, had eventually broken back down into apologies, saying she should have waited and trusted the others to bring Wendy in time. He comforted her as best he could when part of him still held some similar resentments of his own.

Even worse, Lyon was still hanging around. As if dealing with the others wasn't already hard enough. It was a drastic change from Galuna, for sure. The support he offered was quieter and less obtrusive than most of the others, so Gray did his best to ignore him.

But when Lyon did open his big mouth, it usually went badly.

"I'm sure we'll find some kind of really cool prosthetic soon," he said.

"What does it matter?" Gray growled, wishing he'd leave. "It won't be the same. I still won't be able to mold."

"You can do one-handed molding. I did it for a while, so I can show you all the tips and tricks. I think you could do it."

Gray recoiled in horrified anger. "I'm not going to do  _one-handed_ molding," he said harshly. "That's not how she taught us. I'm not going to dishonor her or our magic with unbalanced molding."

A frown tugged at Lyon's lips. "I'm just saying–"

"No."

And off Gray stormed, lonelier than ever.

* * *

Gray was killing himself, Lyon could tell. Lyon couldn't entirely blame him. Losing a limb was hard enough, losing a magic was a hundred times worse, and losing a magic so strongly tied to someone you had loved and lost was utterly devastating. Even just the thought of it made Lyon's skin crawl.

He hadn't seen Gray cry once, hadn't seen him break down and mourn what he had lost. To avoid that, Gray had turned his pain into anger again, quietly raging against the world as he withdrew from his friends and isolated himself as thoroughly as possible. Lyon recognized the tendency from when they were children, and he still didn't like it.

He couldn't leave yet. Partly it was because he felt like he owed Gray something after Galuna and the years of hatred that came before. Mostly it was because he still cared about the idiot.

Gray had already self-destructed before, and Lyon wasn't about to sit back and watch it happen again. There had to be a way to get through to him.

Gray liked to avoid people as much as possible to escape the attention his missing limb drew, so he had picked up a penchant for wandering in the forest when he needed to get away and  _move_. Lyon usually left him alone, knowing he needed some time to himself, but today he followed.

He crept along sneakily for a few minutes before Gray paused in a clearing and turned back with a scowl.

"Will you quit stalking me, already? You aren't nearly as quiet as you think you are."

Lyon emerged from the undergrowth sheepishly. "Yeah… Hey, while we're here, you wanna learn some tricks for one-handed molding?"

Gray's irritation immediately morphed into cold fury. "I already said no. You're welcome to your unbalanced shit, but I want no part of it." He paused and eyed Lyon as the older mage gnawed on the inside of his cheek. "…You use two-handed molding now?"

"Yeah…" Lyon shifted uncomfortably, wondering if it was better not to rub it in Gray's face. "But I mean, if you don't want–"

"Don't be stupid," Gray mumbled. He half turned away, his eyes glassy and unseeing. "If you can do it, then do it. It's good that you're doing it right again."

"Yeah, but…" Lyon sighed heavily and shook his head. "One-handed molding is weaker, but it isn't  _weak_. And neither are you. You aren't broken, Gray. It's a tragedy, but you've always been a fighter, a survivor. It's time to make the most of it."

Gray's shoulders slumped. "I don't know how. And I don't know if I want to. I just can't imagine…"

"Living without your magic?" Lyon suggested. He stepped forward, hesitated, and then reached out to grasp Gray's remaining hand, holding on even when the younger man stiffened. "Her magic?  _Our_ magic? Let me help you figure out the one-handed molding. It's making the best of a bad situation. Even if you can't hang on to her entirely, it's still better to have a piece than nothing at all, right? Don't give up entirely. You can still have her and your magic in a different form.

"And…me. I'll be here…as long as you want me." Lyon shifted awkwardly as Gray bowed his head. He wasn't entirely sure of his place with Gray after all those years apart and then Galuna, and maybe the past few weeks weren't enough to expect to be welcomed back. "I mean, I don't have to if you don't–"

Gray sniffled loudly and choked on the sob he was trying to swallow. Shit, Lyon didn't want to see him cry, but maybe it needed to happen. The tears hadn't come before, but eventually he would have to come to terms with the situation so that he could heal.

Gray gave up on fighting the flood and stepped into Lyon, burying his face in the older mage's chest. Lyon froze, caught off guard by the vulnerability and the acceptance that overlooked all their worst transgressions, but Gray's body trembled like a child's and he couldn't help but wrap his little brother in a tight hug.

The hug he received in return was really only half a hug, and it was this most bittersweet of gestures that truly broke Lyon's heart.


	14. Nostalgia

**Nostalgia**

**_1._ ** _the state of being homesick : homesickness_

**_2._ ** _a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time_

**_Erza pondered over everything Gray was saying…and everything he wasn't._ **

* * *

Erza hadn't meant to go to the river. She was actually on her way to the bakery—and craving her daily fix of strawberry cake—and the road happened to overlook the river and its banks, now white with snow. She glanced over out of habit, having a special fondness for the place, and paused when she spotted Gray lying on his back on the bank, his dark hair standing in startling contrast to the white of the snow around him.

Erza blinked at him uncomprehendingly a few times. He had been to the river before, obviously, but he usually only bothered if he was following Erza down. She wasn't sure she had ever seen him come by himself without prompting.

It was cold, the wind nipping at her nose and making her shiver in her coat, and she desperately wanted her cake. Whatever reason Gray was here for probably wasn't important. But he had always come for her when she needed him, and she felt that she owed it to him to at least check on him.

Sighing to the wind, she pulled her coat tighter against the chill and abandoned the path to tramp through the snow down to the bank.

Gray let his head fall to the side at the sound of her clomping boots, indecipherable eyes tracking her progress as she approached.

"Hi, Gray." Erza plopped into the snow beside him, wincing at the cold wetness that began seeping through her clothes. "What's up?"

Gray's lips twitched into a faint smile at her obvious discomfort, and he turned his head back to stare up at the gray winter sky. He draped his arms lightly across his stomach and sighed a cloud of mist into the air. Erza thought it rather unfair that he wasn't freezing and shivering after lying in the snow for goodness knew how long, but he was, after all, an ice mage.

"Nothing much," he said in a quiet voice. "Just thinking. It's a nice day."

Erza thought his definition of 'nice' was rather skewed, but, again, he was an ice mage.

"If you say so," she said skeptically, and he chuckled. "What are you thinking about?"

Gray's eyes were clouded and faraway. "A little bit of everything, I guess."

Erza resisted the urge to huff in frustration when he didn't elaborate, but it was hardly anything new or surprising. "I don't usually see you down here," she prodded, trying a different tack.

"I guess not. It's been a while."

"If something's wrong…"

"No, no, I'm fine. As I recall, it's always been you who has come down here when something's wrong."

Erza rubbed at her nose sheepishly with one mittened hand. "Ah…"

A wistful smile touched Gray's features, and the very corners of his eyes crinkled. "A strange friendship needs a strange start, I guess."

"Are you calling me strange?" Erza demanded, glaring down at him.

He dragged his eyes away from the clouds and chuckled, but even that sound had an oddly melancholy edge. "You? Strange? Never."

She eyed him suspiciously but relented. "I should hope not."

"Mm." His gaze drifted back to the sky, and Erza again found herself trying to place that odd mixture of melancholy and fondness that hung over him. What  _was_ it? "That was a good turning point, I suppose. A lot has happened here. I don't think I can even count how many fights you broke up here, but they were fun. Natsu and I used to spar down here all the time, as if you wouldn't find us."

"Yes?" Erza agreed uncertainly. She was still puzzling over Gray's mood, and it was starting to put her on edge. "I remember."

"You gave me sword-fighting lessons down here, remember?" Gray's lips quirked into that strange smile again, this time a little more fond than melancholy. "It drove you crazy that I'd make ice swords and not know how to use them properly. I was kind of embarrassed at first, but it was also exciting. Ugh, I admired you too much for my own good. But at least I can use a sword now."

Erza's eyebrows began slowly inching up her forehead at that very un-Gray-like admission. "Yes, I remember. You were a fast learner."

"Or what about that time you dragged me to the bakery and made me sample every flavor of cake they had? You were so determined to find one I liked to prove that I couldn't hate all cake. We got so sick after, though. We ate  _way_ too much cake."

Erza scowled and flopped back into the snow, folding her hands over her stomach and mimicking Gray as she also turned her gaze to the sky. "I still can't believe you didn't like  _any_  of them? Who hates  _cake_?"

He chuckled again. "I did like some of them. I just wasn't going to admit it to you. It was more fun to see how frustrated you got."

"Fun…?"

"You were so cute when you got frustrated," Gray said with a snicker. "You had the most ridiculous expressions."

Erza tilted her head to gawk at him, her cheeks flushing red. "Why, you little–"

But he was still watching the sky and barely seemed to notice her attention. "Oh, how about when Natsu and Lisanna found Happy's egg?" He switched gears like it was nothing, gaze distant as if he had forgotten Erza was even there. "It's still hard to believe that there were a couple months before that cat turned into an annoying little terror. Or when Cana…?"

Erza looked up again with a faint frown, letting Gray's reminiscences wash over her. The things, big and small, that had been half-forgotten since their childhood days. Things she hadn't thought of in years, things she had almost forgotten entirely, things she hadn't realized he had squirreled away as important.

She stole frequent glances at him as he mused aloud, the cold snow seeping into her back all but forgotten. He was nostalgic, she realized. Something she wouldn't normally associate with him. But why? Had it really just come out of the blue, or was there a reason?

She pondered over everything he was saying…and everything he wasn't. As she considered the things he wasn't mentioning, things that would normally be included as a major part of such childhood nostalgia, she began putting the pieces together.

"You miss them a lot, don't you?" she blurted out.

Gray's head fell to the side, dark hair curling around pale skin and over the snow, giving him an almost innocent, childlike look despite the quizzical expression. Erza mentally kicked herself.

"Miss what?" he asked.

"…Your family. Ur. That's why you're so nostalgic today, isn't it?"

Gray blinked at her slowly, then let his eyes slide shut as he turned his face skyward again. "Ah. It's the snow. Makes me nostalgic for Isvan."

"I'm sorry," Erza mumbled awkwardly. "I didn't mean…"

"It's alright."

Gray's eyes cracked open halfway, and he watched the sky go by from beneath his lashes. He looked more tired now, more melancholy. The side of nostalgia left when the fondness was overcome by loss.

Erza chewed on her lip and debated what to do. The fact was that she knew very little about Gray's family and Ur, and she knew he wouldn't tell her much even if she pressed. That was how he was, always keeping things to himself. It was an uncomfortable feeling to realize that no one in the guild really understood Gray's life before or knew much about it at all. Erza could maybe offer some comfort, but she could only do so much when she had no place in that part of his life.

And the only person who  _did_ …

"Maybe you should visit Lyon," she said.

Gray let out his breath in a sigh. "I'm fine, Erza. It was a long time ago."

"I just think it would be good for you to–"

"No. It's fine."

"But–"

"This isn't really a good time for a visit."

"Not a good time?" Erza studied his face in bewilderment. He still wasn't looking at her, but the sudden tightening of his lips and grimness in his eyes gave her a clue. "Oh. Is it…?"

"The anniversary is coming up."

She winced. "You guys have come so far. He doesn't even blame you anymore, and–"

"No. Just…no."

Erza watched him sadly. He was always so strong, always a little bit distant. He didn't show vulnerability often, but Erza had learned to read the signs in his face over the years. She didn't like it.

He was like her annoying little brother—although Natsu might still be the more annoying of the two in that respect—and she was protective of him. She kept him and Natsu in line, but she also took care of them however she could. And like any brother, he was always quick to rise to her defense when she was threatened, quick to sit with her when she was sad, quick to shelter her under his wing when the outside world pushed a little too far.

And like any older sister, Erza wanted to hold him and shelter him and make things right when he was unhappy. She hated that there was only so much she could do. As much as she hated to turn over her responsibility, she knew that he needed someone else right now.

Lyon was, by all accounts, Gray's older brother in all but blood, and that was a sibling bond stronger than any quiet, unacknowledged bond Gray and Erza might have. It made Erza weirdly jealous in a way, seeing Lyon show up out of nowhere and usurp her place after she had held it for so many years growing up while he'd been nowhere to be found.

But she would step aside and do what was best for the little punk. If Gray needed Lyon, then she'd be damned if she didn't make it happen.

"He loves you," she said quietly. "Even I can see that. And you obviously still love him. I know there was some tension there, but I believe that he'll be there if you need him." She reached out, hesitated, and then brushed the hair away from his face with a feather-light touch. "I'd help if I could, and you know you can always come to me if you need anything. But I'm afraid that there's only so much I can do for you with this, so I'm going to give you some advice instead: go see your brother."

Gray stared at her, dark eyes big and lost with that vulnerable, melancholy quality that made him look younger than his age. Erza didn't see it often, but it always made her want to wrap him in her arms and not let go until the world was a less cruel place.

"Maybe I will," he said finally. He shifted, and nested his head against her shoulder as he turned his gaze back to the dreary sky. "But for now, my sister's doing alright on her own."

Erza blushed, and then felt a persistent smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She worked an arm underneath him, looking for a comfortable position, and then wrapped it loosely around him, reflecting that although the past was nostalgic, she was prouder of how far he—they—had come since then.

And then she turned her gaze to the clouds, and together the two friends found their future in the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, they're so cute it almost disgusts me.


	15. Oblivion

**Oblivion**

**_1._ ** _the condition of being completely forgotten_

**_2._ ** _the condition of being unaware or unconscious of what is happening_

**_The guild should be celebrating Zeref's defeat, but they can't look past iced shell and the empty hole it leaves. Gray remembers for them, but they have forgotten him, and he's afraid that eventually he'll forget them too._ **

* * *

Natsu stood frozen, his hand clutching the doorframe so tightly that his knuckles were white and aching. All he could do was stare and stare and stare at the glistening sheet of ice covering half of their destroyed guild hall, with Zeref suspended inside like a bug in amber.

Zeref was taken care of, and now they didn't need to find a way to kill him that wouldn't also kill Natsu. The war would be over and Natsu was saved. He should be happy.

But he couldn't help but think  _'iced shell'_ , and he'd heard of that spell from Lyon. Someone had to die, had to sacrifice, and Natsu realized with a sudden jolt that he had no idea who that might be. He didn't know who had sacrificed themselves to save him—to save them all—and he needed to.

The war was over and the ice glittered beautifully in the light, but Natsu could only stare and wonder why his heart was broken and his face was wet with tears.

.

Gray slipped in and out of consciousness. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. Death, maybe.

Instead, it was more like slipping in and out of sleep. He couldn't tell how long he dreamt his dreamless sleep before rising to almost-consciousness for the briefest of moments. Time meant nothing now.

Sometimes he'd catch glimpses of Natsu or Lucy or Erza or Happy or Lyon. He didn't see them, exactly, but he could feel them. He knew they were there, that they sometimes came to stare and wonder.

He missed them. He almost wished they missed him. But it was better this way, and Gray knew it was easier if they didn't remember. He would just have to love enough for all of them, since they couldn't love him anymore. He would remember for them.

But they had forgotten him, and he was afraid that eventually he would forget them too.

* * *

Lucy's rent was overdue  _again_. Only her landlady could look at their destroyed city and then turn around and demand rent from one of the people who had saved it. Honestly.

And it had been rainy and gloomy for days, which hadn't improved Lucy's mood. She missed the sun.

That was the only explanation she could come up with for why the guild was so somber and subdued after their impossible victory against Zeref and the Spriggans and Acnologia. They should be celebrating, but they weren't.

It might also, she suspected, have something to do with the ice marking the resting place of their mysterious savior. Most of them had gone to pay their respects at least once, but that didn't quite explain the pull it had over them. Lucy had gone a few times, but she always left feeling like her heart had been hollowed out of her chest. And it always heightened that ever-present itchy feeling that something was missing. She kept turning around to say something to someone who wasn't there, and it was driving her crazy.

But maybe it was just the weather getting to her.

"I hate this weather," she complained to Natsu and the rest of the team. "It's been days, and it's still so gloomy and  _gray_."

She stilled, freezing in place. A sudden hush fell over everyone in earshot, and they all stared at each other. There was a long moment where they all stayed frozen and lost in the feeling that they were  _so close_ to uncovering something that was missing.

Then they shook it off and turned away and went back to their business.

Natsu cleared his throat as he shook his head sharply. "Guess we might as well take a job. You gotta pay rent, right?"

"Yeah…"

Lucy thought her spirits would rise at the prospect of escaping the city and procuring that troublesome rent money, but the hole in her chest yawned wider than ever.

.

Time meant nothing, but he knew that his stretches of unconsciousness were getting longer, his moments of lucidity shorter. And each time he half-woke from his slumber, he knew that he remembered less. He was forgetting things.

He didn't remember his name anymore. He had a hard time remembering what he had looked like or the things he had enjoyed or his quirks and mannerisms or his hopes and dreams. Everyone had forgotten him, and he supposed that he was forgetting himself now too.

And them, a little. Everything from before the ice was growing hazier, the memories foggy and distorted. Sometimes he would sense someone nearby and there would be a terrifying moment where he couldn't remember their name or face.

That scared him more than anything, that he might lose them the same way they had lost him. He fought the forgetting as best he could, but sleep always won out and dragged him back under.

And each time he slipped into sleep and stirred again, he remembered less and less, and forgot more and more.

* * *

Erza's hand hovered over the page tacked to the request board. It felt like the team was starting to fall apart, and the jobs they went on were few and far between. Every time they tried to go to a festival or take a job, it felt  _wrong_. Like something was missing, even though they were all there.

It felt horrible and ruined everyone's moods. There had been no spoken agreement about getting together less, but they'd all begun putting off jobs and they all knew why, even if they never brought it up.

Erza's resolve hardened and she tore the page off the board. It was time to get back into the swing of things and pull the team together again. They were slowly falling apart over  _nothing_ , and she was ready to fix it.

"Let's go," she said, grabbing Lucy and Natsu by their collars and dragging them out of the building, leaving Happy to flutter along behind. "We're going to do this job."

It still felt like someone was missing, someone who didn't even exist, but Erza firmly pushed the feeling out of mind and ignored it. It was a little easier than last time.

The hole was there, it would always be there, but it was becoming a little easier to forget.

.

His brief surfacing sent a faint twinge of irritation through him, but it faded quickly. No feelings lasted for very long. He was tired. He wanted to go back to sleep. He was ready to sleep forever, one with the ice.

Sometimes people would drift by—he could sense them. If he still possessed any curiosity, he might wonder why. He didn't know who they were, and he doubted they knew him either. He wished they would leave him to his slumber.

Everything was so hazy and fragmented, and he wondered if he'd ever been one of them at all. Maybe it was just some half-remembered dream.

But it didn't really matter, so he went back to sleep.

* * *

"You lllllike him," Happy teased. He grinned as Lucy flushed.

"You stupid cat! Hush!"

Happy cackled merrily. Natsu was as oblivious as ever, but Erza's ill-concealed smile and Lucy's embarrassed anger were totally worth it.

He opened his mouth to push the spike deeper, but paused in midair and looked back over his shoulder. Their old guild hall was several buildings behind them now. They'd walked right past it, and he hadn't automatically felt drawn to it like usual. Usually he was pulled to that place and the mysterious ice like a magnet.

He'd been avoiding it lately. Going there always made him sad, for reasons he couldn't quite fathom. Maybe it was progress that he could pass it by without feeling the all-consuming need to go inside and stare at the ice. Baby steps.

That familiar ache started up in his heart again, but he turned away and flew on, relieved that he was finally moving on.

.

There was nothing but sleep and ice. He slept in the clutches of the ice, sank into its chilly embrace. Occasionally he was half-aware of the world for a moment or two, but it only elicited a heavy blankness in him.

Ice didn't need to think or feel, it simply  _was_. So he hung suspended and dreamed his dreamless dreams, sinking down and spreading out until he was the ice.

* * *

Lyon let his breath out in a harsh sigh and placed a hand on the ice. It was cold and slippery beneath his fingers, but that was no surprise. He was looking for something more, but he was having a hell of a hard time finding it.

He found himself here too often, and his guild whispered and worried over how often he was traveling to Magnolia. He couldn't exactly explain it. Maybe it was just because Ur had sacrificed herself the same way to seal a demon, and it was tragic to see it happen to someone else. Even if he didn't know who that someone was.

This place left a gaping hole in his heart. And it always seemed to follow him out, like something was missing no matter where he went. Maybe it was time to stop coming here.

Whatever he was searching for wouldn't be here. Ur was basically dead, and so was whoever lay here. It was time for Lyon to let go of the stranger and the mystery.

Pulling his hand away from the ice felt like ripping his heart in half. He let out a shuddering breath and retreated slowly toward the door, cradling his hand and keeping his eyes fixed on the glittering ice as he backed away.

"Goodbye," he whispered.

It hurt, but he turned around and walked away.

.

And he slipped into oblivion.


	16. Placebo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...don't really have an explanation for this one. I read some fic in a different fandom that used this technique/style-thing, but it didn't really make sense how it was used and I decided to do it my own way. And will probably never do it again lol But hey, gotta love a bitter Gray X)
> 
> ...Upon further inspection, I wrote this over a year ago, which explains a lot XD Just to give you an idea of how long I sometimes sit on things before posting them lol This was one of the first batch of snippets I wrote for this series, before I dropped it for a long time and then recently picked it up again. Eesh.

* * *

**Placebo**

**_1._ ** **_a:_ ** _a substance that has positive effects as a result of a patient's perception that it is beneficial rather than as a result of a causative ingredient_

**_..b:_ ** _an inactive substance or preparation used as a control in an experiment or test to determine the effectiveness of a medicinal drug_

**_2._ ** _something of no intrinsic remedial value that is used to appease or reassure another_

**_Gray wondered, sometimes, if his friends realized that they were eating sugar pills out of the palm of his hand._ **

* * *

Gray wondered, sometimes, if his friends realized that they were eating sugar pills out of the palm of his hand. He knew how to play the game, how to feed them spun-sugar lies and sweet-nothing half-truths until they were satiated, satisfied. He didn't know how anyone could subsist on cotton candy alone—all sugar-sugar-sweet fluff and air, with no real substance behind it. They must have a real sweet tooth.

It was just as well, since he had an endless supply of sweet-sweet-sugar pills for them: a laugh, a smile, a handful of teasing words. Reassurance that he was perfectly-perfectly-fine.

It seemed to work, as long as they continued thinking that his smiles were sugar-sugar-sweet instead of bitter-bitter-empty. He almost envied how they could swallow down those sugared lies so easily. For him, it was always a bitter pill to swallow, always got stuck in his throat. The empty-empty-bitter smiles and laughs and words tasted like ashes in his mouth, so he spit them out, alchemized them into something saccharine, and fed them to his friends instead.

In the beginning, each smile had been a placebo, something to appease his friends, to reassure them that he was happy-happy-fine and not sad-sad-broken. But all that sugar-sugar-sweet (so-sweet, too-sweet, sickly-sickly-sweet) curled around his insides, eating holes into his heart and rotting him from the inside out. The bitter-bitter-sweet made him sick to his stomach, but maybe it was still better than what came next.

Because now it was Gray himself who was the placebo, now that there was nothing left of him inside that sugar coating, now that all the sugar-sugar-sweet had eaten through all his bitter-bitter-empty and left him hollow-hollow-dead.


	17. Quarry

* * *

**Quarry**

**_1._ ** _an animal hunted or chased_

**_2._ ** _an object of pursuit_

_**Behind Gray, something crashed through the undergrowth. His battered body screamed in agony, but he flew through the forest with the speed of someone being chased by the devil himself. Still, he couldn't run forever.** _

* * *

Gray leapt over a fallen log and stumbled, almost going to his knees before dragging himself back up and staggering forward again. Blood poured from the gash in his side and seeped out of the slash running up the length of his left leg. He quickly swept another coat of ice over the injuries, although only the barest dregs of his magic remained now.

Behind him, something crashed through the undergrowth. He startled like a frightened rabbit and took off at full speed again, careening through the trees and weaving his way through the trunks in his desperate hurry. His battered body screamed in agony and his lungs burned, but he flew through the forest with the speed of someone being chased by the devil himself.

Shit, where were the others? Natsu was supposed to have been there. And Happy…the girls…

What if that  _thing_ had already gotten them? That thought made his breath catch in fright, sending him into a paroxysm of coughing. He  _couldn't breathe_.

He forced himself on anyway, stumbling and almost going down again. There was another loud sound from behind him, and he bit out a strangled curse that was more of a wheezing gasp for air than anything.

He was just about out of magic, injured, and exhausted. His only chance was to find Natsu and the others, but he'd seen no sign of them and didn't even know if they'd ended up in the forest too. And he couldn't run forever. He was already dizzy from blood loss, winded, and on his last legs.

He couldn't run forever and…

He would have to hide, then, although he wasn't sure how much good it would do. He couldn't keep up this frantic pace, and anything slower would deliver him to the snapping jaws of the beast behind him. He put on a desperate burst of speed, a last-ditch effort, and weaved quickly through the trees, ducking through underbrush and zigzagging in an attempt to lose his pursuer. He wasn't used to being prey, wasn't used to running away, but he'd tried everything else and was quickly running out of options.

All the ducking and weaving was starting to make his head spin…or maybe that was just the blood loss. He dared a quick peek over his shoulder, searching for any sign of whatever was following him. Nothing. The forest was still now, deceptively so. He saw and heard nothing, so he decided to make his move.

There was a thick patch of brush nested at the base of a tall oak, and he wriggled his way inside, muffling his curses as twigs and branches caught at his clothing and skin. He retreated as far as he could, finding the best cover and burying himself beneath the leaves and branches.

And he waited. His breath was still coming in wheezing gasps as he tried to pull enough air into his lungs, but he clamped his mouth shut and desperately tried to quiet his breathing. There was nothing he could do about the pounding of his heartbeat. He stayed very, very still, afraid that even the slightest motion would set the leaves crackling and the twigs snapping.

He waited with only his heartbeat in his ears for company. One minute, two.

Something moved.

He slid his hand over his mouth to further muffle his breathing and stared into the thorny tangle with wide eyes. Something was snuffling around, looking for a scent, perhaps. He could hear loud, panting breaths, and sticks cracked under the weight of heavy feet.

Gray closed his eyes and tried not to pass out, either from blood loss or fright. It was  _right there_.

It seemed to nose around forever, the seconds dragging out into an eternity, but then the noises retreated and vanished. Gray stayed absolutely still, not daring to move a muscle. He was taking no chances. That thing could still be out there, waiting.

He waited for several minutes, but no sound returned, other than the normal noises of the forest. Nothing disturbed the chirping of the birds or the rustling of leaves in the wind.

As much as he'd rather stay here forever and not risk coming out of hiding, he wouldn't survive if he did that. He needed to find the team and make sure they were alright. And, as much as it pained him to admit, he would need medical attention. He couldn't stay marooned out here, and he'd need to leave before the beast returned. Sneaking his way out of this forest would be a nightmare.

He carefully wriggled out of the underbrush, wincing as the branches scratched at his injuries. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he straightened up and waited for the wave of dizziness to pass. Then he opened his eyes and turned around.

And came face to face with a pair of glowing red eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have any backstory for this one, sorry :3


	18. Responsible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In good news, I actually worked my way all the way through "z" and have started over from "a" again. So it looks like I did stick it out through the entire alphabet after all, yaaay. We might even get some humor soon :O But not until "u", sorry. But there are a few buried in here somewhere lol

* * *

**Responsible**

**_1._ ** _being the cause of a particular action or situation, especially a harmful or unpleasant one_

**_2._ ** _having the duty of taking care of something; having control over or care for someone, as part of one's job or role_

_**Because both Gray and Lyon felt responsible, and Lyon wanted the right to be responsible again, even if only for just a day.** _

* * *

"Anniversary…?" Lyon repeated slowly. He stared at Juvia, her tearful account of Gray's actions on their '413th day anniversary' striking an uncomfortable chord. He frowned at the ground. "Today…is the anniversary of Ur's death. He won't be feeling up to company. You should…probably leave him alone today."

Juvia gasped loudly. "Juvia did not know!"

Lyon hummed noncommittally and waved her off, already turning to head back down the street. That stupid little punk…

Gray wouldn't want company, which was something that would be obvious even without his impatient rejection of Juvia's—frankly laughable—efforts to give him a scarf for some made-up celebration. Still…Lyon couldn't leave him alone. Maybe because he felt…responsible, in a way, for the brat's well-being. Gray wouldn't be pleased with his interference, but Lyon… Lyon couldn't walk away.

Thanks to Juvia, he knew that Gray was wandering around these snowy streets somewhere. The only issue now was  _finding_ him.

It took nearly half an hour of searching before Lyon turned the corner and spotted his quarry at the other end of the street. He took off at a trot, only falling back to a normal walk once he had caught up.

"You shouldn't have been so mean to Juvia."

Gray started, his brows drawing together as he stiffened and glowered over at the intruder. "Don't even get me started on that girl. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know, just enjoying a nice stroll in the snow…"

"Cut the shit. What do you want?"

"What do I want…?" Lyon tipped his head back and looked up at the sky, his breath puffing out in a soft exhale that lingered in the air. "I want…you to not be alone today, even though you want to be."

Gray was silent for a long minute before saying, "Go home, Lyon."

"No. It's not your fault, you know. I know I said it was and you're stupid enough to believe it, but…it wasn't. It was just a horrible accident."

"Maybe, but my actions were directly responsible for her death, and therefore I am responsible. I don't need to hide behind excuses anymore. I can take responsibility for what happened."

"Responsible, huh?" Lyon's sad eyes studied Gray's face sidelong. An idea ingrained so deeply would not be so easily forgotten. "And yet, I did something worse."

"What?" Gray shook his head in irritated confusion. "What could possibly be worse?"

"…I blamed you and I left you. I was the older brother, and once she was gone it was my responsibility to look after you. I was responsible for you, but I just yelled at you and chased you off to struggle on your own instead of making sure that you were okay and didn't blame yourself."

"What are you trying to say?" Gray stopped and faced Lyon with a ferocious scowl. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. "I don't need you to be responsible for me. I can take care of myself, and I did just fine without you. Now go away and– Hey!"

Lyon grabbed Gray and pulled him into a hug, hanging on resolutely despite how he squirmed. "Calm down."

"Get off me! Get off, get–"

"Just for today," Lyon whispered. He hugged Gray tighter, closing his eyes and burying his face in his hair. "Just for today, let me be responsible for you again. Let me be the older brother I was always supposed to be for just one day."

Gray's struggling slowed and drifted to an uncertain halt. Slowly, he hugged Lyon back.

Lyon let out a breath and cradled him. His heart ached, as much for Gray as for Ur. As much for what they had lost as for anything. The tears burned hot beneath his closed eyelids.

He had given up so much in failing to protect Gray the way he should have. He had let Gray go instead of staying with him when he had no one, blamed him when he should have comforted him, been hateful when he should have been loving. They could have grown up together and been brothers and helped each other heal, but Lyon had thrown that away and lost out on a decade of friendship, a lifetime of brotherhood.

He had lost his right to be responsible for Gray, maybe. But right now he could be the older brother he was meant to be, had always wanted to be, even if only for just this moment.

"Maybe," Gray breathed in a small, choked voice, "not just for today."

A tear broke loose and slid down Lyon's cheek. "For as long as you want."

"Maybe… Maybe forever."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Oh my gosh, it's so sappy but I can't help it because I love these two, so sorry._ *ahem* As much as I love torturing Gray, I gotta feel for Lyon too, poor guy X) And although I enjoy working with all that side with Ur, I'm also super interested in that broken brotherly bond with Gray and Lyon and how they work on slowly rebuilding it.
> 
> Also, Lyon should've definitely been more involved in that dumb omake than _Juvia_ of all people. Bah.


	19. Selfish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, this is the last of the old-guard Words I wrote way back when (along with Aubade, Bellicose, Comatose, Deception, Grimoire, Jealousy, and Placebo, just as a fun piece of trivia lol), which probably explains why I would have tackled it differently if I was writing it today. But hey, everything after this point is more recent. Which also means that I won't be able to make excuses for them. Shucks lol

* * *

**Selfish**

**_1._ ** _concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself_ _**:** _ _seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others_

**_2._ ** _arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others_

**_Gray could be a horribly selfish person sometimes. It wasn't like that was a big secret. It wasn't exactly a startling, out-of-the-blue revelation._ **

* * *

Gray could be a horribly selfish person sometimes. It wasn't like that was a big secret. It wasn't exactly a startling, out-of-the-blue revelation. He'd known it for a long time. Probably he'd figured it out right around the time he'd managed to get Ur killed because he was too selfish and stubborn to think things through.

Of course, if he bothered to tell his friends the reasoning behind this fundamental truth, they would whack him over the head and ask if he'd really learned nothing over all these years he'd lived and grown and loved with the guild. They might be right, too. He would like to think that he'd learned and grown a lot over the past decade, but it seemed like there were still certain parts of himself that he couldn't escape.

So selfish he would be. He was selfish because if he could turn back time, he would change what happened even though things had mostly worked out in the end and everyone was mostly happy with the outcome. Even the person who had the most reason to be unhappy with everything seemed content enough. But not him. He wasn't happy with it.

Everything had happened so quickly that he hadn't had time to think, much less make a choice, and when he had finally had the time to think, the choice had already been made and it was too late. If he had actually gotten to make that choice, then he would have chosen the opposite, no matter how selfish it was.

He would have chosen to rip apart everyone's hearts, to leave them crying and screaming his name.

He would have chosen to abandon his friends, to leave them kneeling in the dust and grime and blood.

He would have chosen to stamp out their hope, to leave them grieving and bereft and unhappy.

He would have chosen to ignore every lesson they had ever tried to teach him, to leave them to live for themselves without him, with no more than an empty stone as a reminder.

He would have chosen to lie still and cold in the dirt, to leave Ultear to live her life the way she should have been able to.

Call him selfish, but he would have chosen to die, to leave everyone else to face the consequences of that choice.

But he hadn't gotten to make that choice, had he? Ultear had made it for him, so unbelievably selfless that the inherent selfishness of it was obscured to all but the most discerning eye.

The same as Gray. He wasn't selfish because he put his own well-being above others', but because he disregarded it no matter who it would hurt. Because he had a self-destructive streak that ran a mile wide, even when it wasn't only himself that he would destroy. Because he would do anything for his friends, even if it meant breaking their hearts to do it. The most selfish people were the most selfless.

He wondered if Ultear had thought about that. He wondered if she had known what she was doing or if maybe she'd had a reason bigger than him after all. He hadn't gotten the chance to stop the carriage and ask, ask her why she had turned back time for him, for everyone.

She had made a choice and it had taken a choice away from him, in the same way that the choice he would have made would have taken a choice away from everyone else. Maybe he thought she was selfish because she had taken that choice. Maybe he thought he was selfish because he wanted to have taken that choice himself.

He didn't condemn her the same way he condemned himself, but he couldn't help but wish that he'd had the opportunity to choose. Although sometimes he was almost glad he hadn't, because sometimes he needed someone to save him from himself, to save his friends from his actions.

Ultear had meant well and he loved her for it, but in the end, it didn't change anything.

He was still left living with the consequences of the choice he hadn't made—and with the knowledge of the choice he would have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dunno, I guess I get interested in different facets of words and their meanings, and it's fun to twist them around and turn natural assumptions on their heads. To be fair, canon Gray doesn't really know what Ultear's real plans behind Last Ages were. Also, his persistent self-destructive streak can be really frustrating x.x


	20. Chapter 20

**Tattered**

**_1._ ** _torn into shreds: ragged_

**_2._ ** **_a_ ** _**:** _ _broken down: dilapidated_

**_..b_ ** _**:** _ _being in a shattered condition_

**_Someone screamed and Lucy froze. Natsu had gone after Zeref and Gray, but something was wrong. There had been too much pain in that cry—pain that went far beyond broken bones and strayed into the territory of broken hearts._ **

* * *

A hoarse cry sounded from their wrecked guild hall, and Lucy's head whipped up.

"Natsu!" Happy whimpered.

Lucy's whole body went rigid. Natsu had run off in a hurry and hadn't said much about what was going on or what he was planning to do, but she knew that he expected both Zeref and Gray to be in what was left of their guild.

"He told us not to come after him," she mumbled. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the building, paralyzed by indecision. "He's just fighting. He's strong."

"Something is wrong!" Happy wailed. He took off towards the hall in a panicked flurry of wings, a blue streak hurtling through the air.

Lucy raced after him. She was afraid that he was right. There had been too much pain in that cry—pain that went far beyond broken bones and strayed into the territory of broken hearts.

She slammed the door open and stumbled to a stop in the threshold. "Natsu!" she gasped around her panting breaths. "What happened?"

Natsu was standing slightly hunched over, eyes wide and vacant as they stared at…nothing. They were fixed on some arbitrary point in front of him, just an empty space.

Zeref stood several feet away, one corner of his mouth curled into the slightest of smiles. "Oh, look," he said. "More of your friends. What fun."

Lucy took a half-step back and Happy's wings fluttered nervously.

"Where is Gray?" Lucy asked, her voice rising to a pitch she barely recognized as her own. "I thought you said he'd be here."

Natsu said nothing.

"He was," Zeref said.

"W-was? Where is he?"

Zeref shrugged, stepped forward, and scooped a rag off the ground. He tossed it towards them, and Lucy shrank back as she stared at the tattered, bloody shirt.

"That doesn't mean anything," Happy said defiantly. "Gray loses his shirt all the time. I thought he  _already_ lost it. Clothing gets torn up in fights."

"It's your fault, really." Zeref's eyes traced over Natsu's statue-like form with something like satisfaction. Even when he spoke to the stunned mages in the doorway, his eyes never left the dragon slayer. "Your friend had the bright idea of trapping me with iced shell, which was actually rather brilliant and would have worked. Iced shell kicks up an intense storm of magic around the caster, and my own magic wouldn't have been able to get through to stop him.

"But Natsu came just in time to fight his way through and force everything to a halt. There was such a  _touching_ declaration of friendship. All, 'I thought we were friends, don't die, stop thinking about dying'. It was very sweet, really. But you know, it was also an unfortunate distraction, and since Natsu stripped away his defense…"

"What happened to Gray?" Lucy whispered.

But nothing Zeref said or produced could overshadow what Natsu's horrified face already showed.

"I'm going to kill you," Natsu said, his voice dead. Shaking himself out of his stunned horror, his eyes hardened around the pain crystallized in their depths and fire sprang to his fingertips. "I'm going to fucking kill you."

Zeref smiled. His footsteps were slow and deliberate, echoing off the walls like a death knell as he walked forward and bent down to retrieve something half-hidden behind an overturned table.

"Here he is," he said brightly, tossing the tattered body towards the newcomers.

Lucy looked down at the mess of tangled limbs and blood and twisted bones, and she screamed.

And screamed and screamed and screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Really, you saw 'tattered' and your first thought wasn't tattered fabric or clothing but tattered bodies? Wtf is wrong with you?"  
> I'M SORRY, OKAY?
> 
> I actually feel worst for Natsu, honestly. But here, let this be a lesson on why you shouldn't always have conversations and friendship speeches in the middle of fights to the potential death. Of course, this is FT and FT doesn't believe in death, but it's the principle of the thing lol


End file.
